I’ve recently been thinking a lot about life after college and wanted to get some parents’ perspective on this. I’m currently an undergrad student and neither of my parents or most of my family members attended college. I just wanted to hear what its been like for you and how you’ve grown in terms of your professional and personal development.
Your professional development will come in many forms, depend on your profession, your company, and evolve in ways you will never expect at times. It depends on if you are applying your degree to your profession (i.e. someone with an accounting degree becomes an accountant) or if you apply your degree as a complement to hour profession (i.e. someone with a finance degree becomes a project manager and uses his finance skills to operate the budget of his projects) or if you get a degree in something completely unrelated to your profession (i.e. someone with a history degree becoming a CFO). There will likely be leadership, communication, and many other types of training that either address issues in performance or increase on your strengths. And likely the biggest development will be your own self-learning by reading and applying those skills.
Sorry to be vague at times because you ask a question that could and will likely be answered differently by everyone that responds to your question. The most important thing to remember is that you are in charge of what your development looks like and it can start now.
Good luck!
P.S. The examples I give in my 2nd sentence are real people … and I’m one of them. 
The 20s are tough. Once you leave school, the support structure you’ve grown reliant on falls away. It’s harder to meet people your own age. Work takes up a lot more of your time and energy than studying did - and it’s on someone else’s schedule. First jobs are notoriously about what you don’t want to be doing the rest of your life rather than finding your ‘dream job’ - so you’ll be changing jobs and possibly locations several times - and maybe going back to school for additional training. Money is often tight, so you can’t buy your way out of unpleasantness (like a laptop crash that means all the money you saved for vacation will now go into the replacement.) Friends move far away or get married and don’t have time any more…
I don’t mean to scare you. Just to point out that the 20s are times of big adjustments and changes. Find your support systems - family, friends who are like family, communities that you want to be part of and which will be there for you if things get rough. Do things to stay healthy so that doesn’t become a source of stress. Learn how to budget your money. And remind yourself that the journey you are on is the important part - not the end result. If you are making the right moves - acquiring support system, skills, useful experiences - you will figure it out.
Loved the movie Frances Ha by the way - perfect story of a 20-something trying to figure it out and making all the moves, good and bad, that are typical of the 20s. It will give you some perspective.
I would convey a more positive forecast for the rest of your twenties, but N’s Mom’s post is valuable in its insights.
I think one of the main things to know is that life proceeds in zigs and zags, not straight lines. Try to follow the opportunities that appear, or that you make appear, where they lead without over-planning. You do not have to have everything figured out. And you do not have to be “successful” right off the bat either. Good luck!
This. Read it several times. I’m going to point out that this is a period of tremendous growth, even more so than college because, as “school,” has a much more familiar/comfortable structure to someone coming out of high school. The work world is much bigger change. And while it’s important to brace yourself, you have to remember that growth, while very uncomfortable, is a process that benefits you.
By the time I was 30, I had a husband, a house with a mortgage, a master’s degree, and a career doing something very different from what I had anticipated when I graduated from college. And I was pregnant.
A lot happens during the decade or so after college. But it doesn’t happen all at once. And though the world of school is more familiar to you than the world of work and independent adult living, the opposite is true for all the older people you know, including your parents. Even if they didn’t go to college, they can advise you on lots of aspects of adult life because they’ve been there.
Do you need to apply for a credit card? Buy a car? Fill out an income tax form? Deal with a jury duty summons? Choose between the different health insurance plans offered by your employer? Get rid of a mouse in your apartment? Your parents have done all of these things, and they can advise you. So can the other older people in your life.
So although you’re heading into a new phase of life, you’re not entirely on your own.
I am an engineer, got a job after college, was unattached and had a heck of a good time. My 20s (after college, not during) were a lot of fun. My friends and I had benefits, vacation time, and finally had enough money to do really cool things. I went to Europe and Mexico, joined a gym and got totally shredded, finally earned my TKD black belt, dated some accomplished and beautiful women, fell in love and got married. Friends were renting summer houses on Cape Cod and Newport, RI. Youth + energy + available cash = lots of potential for fun.
I spent a lot of hours on my career, made chief engineer before 30 and was on track to be a VP. Later, I sacrificed most of my career ambition for wife and kids with no regrets (except cash, wish I was retired now).
@atl2009 I would suggest managing your expectations and setting some general goals. N’s Mom made some good points.
I would say, in hindsight, that one of the best things we (my husband and I) did was to make saving and investing a priority. We both came from modest, middle income families. We’re in our 50’s with 2 children in college…and retired.
It took work and discipline to get to this point…and yes, some luck. And btw, no, we didn’t win the lottery or inherit a bunch of money. 
To the OP. I’m going to link you to a comment that I made on another thread about how life-careers develop. Most people go through a series of jobs in their early post-graduation years. And that is perfectly normal. You mainly want these job changes to be progressive, to be more challenging, more interesting, more financially rewarding.
Here’s the link: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18941993#Comment_18941993
I appreciate all the advice and insight. As previously stated, neither of my parents went to college, so most of my life has been planned out to ensure that I wouldn’t have to face the same struggles they did. They were refugees following the Vietnam War and while we’ve never been swimming in money or dirt poor we are part of the lower middle class. With that being said, most of the planning has been initiated by me because of my desire to have a different life for myself. Up until high school it was pretty straight forward, work hard and earn the grade. Now that I’m in college it’s definitely been a huge adjustment in terms of things I can and can’t control.
Compared to your family you will be eligible for jobs that require a college degree. As far as development a lot is similar because you are gaining life experiences as an adult regardless of whether you are in school, the military or employed full time. For you some of your parents’ independent decision making skills will be delayed because of the more sheltered college years. Everyone goes through many changes while in their twenties. Once you are done with college the “real world” hits you. A job, housing and other of the same things that faced your parents.
Skip worrying about major philosophical professional and personal development. You have your education, which may or may not lead to your long term career. See above for excellent comments. Most of us became too busy in the nitty gritty of living our lives to contemplate our paths.
Talk to any adult over 50 and you will find the wisdom garnered from the decades of adult living. It could be in a few or all areas of life. Being a college grad or not doesn’t make a person any more/less wise in life development. I have talked to some with a HS education who are more well read and knowledgeable about the world than some with multiple college degrees. There are those who get their degree and do the job they trained for without bothering to expand their interests or knowledge outside of their field.
The biggest difference in you and your parents is likely to be a wider view of the world due to your exposure to things via your varied college classes and the people you encounter. Plus you will have spent more time developing critical thinking skills. You are more likely able to use thinking instead of manual skills to earn a living.
One of the issues in your 20’s is that friends will drift and new groups of friends will form. Some people are in grad school and not necessarily available as on all different schedules and in all parts of the U.S. and the world. Other new friends will be made through work or if in school. One of the challenges comes from friends who perhaps are on the Investment banker track and others who are struggling artists and who has disposable income and who doesn’t especially when going out to celebrate friend’s birthdays, what is easily affordable for one is not so for someone else. Then when you get to the weddings stage of life you will want to be part of many of your friends celebrations both, new and old but that is a balancing act challenge in itself, especially if destination weddings are involved. Depending on your field you might find as I did decades ago the first challenges of business travel as well as living on your own with your perhaps limited income, it can be a challenge to find time to maintain interests and hobbies or develop new ones or sometimes there is unlimited time without any responsibilities to attend to. It will of course vary tremendously from person to person and place to place.
Don’t discard the friends you make in college. Pursue your dreams and hobbies. Travel now as there won’t be time or much money later on. Buy your parents nice presents when you can afford to and thank them every chance you get.
Maybe, maybe not.
This is one of the areas where individuals’ lives differ. Some people have little time or little money in their twenties. For them, travel is a luxury that may need to be postponed.
I didn’t travel as much in my 20s as I do now in my 50s. I think striking a good balance is important–saving and living below your means will allow you to have more options and choices that are attractive. I highly recommend it.
Travel is great for some folks but not a must. Having a college degree certainly gives one more employment options than not having one.
I think the comments by @CatnPhx are so solid that they deserve a mention.
Funny, but even though I’ll share, I think my major thought is to beware some comments you’ll get from various adults in various stages of their own careers (not aimed at posters here.) People like to tell how it’s either so very hard for the younger generation or they throw out simplistic statements that make it all sound so easy, if you could just do what they did. Or platitudes like, “Do what you love and the money will follow.” Or advice to get super analytical about your strengths. Truth is, many of us lucked out or found our paths in ways we couldn’t have planned.
You will need to be savvy and energized, use career services to learn about various directions and help with your first resume. You can benefit from talking with recent grads who did get what seems to be a great job, how they did it, what the work is about. You can pick the city or area to hunt in, depending on whether the opportunities you want are urban or not.
Look for opportunities to learn and grow in the job. Be willing to put in the effort to learn that job and do it well. Now, someone is paying you for that. Sometimes, starting small offers more responsibility and pays off in the resume and your marketable skills, a year down the road. Sometimes, not. Be open to new experiences.
Never let a job beat you down. But don’t be afraid of hard work and long hours- they can bring a satisfaction. With few exceptions (new lawyers, accountants at tax time, etc,) you can balance, still have friends and the downtime that’s right for you. It’s an exciting time. Best wishes.
Read Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover and learn how to save/invest money.
Your major in college is less important than your skills. I keep drilling this into S2’s head – he wants jobs using his foreign language/IR major, but he skips over the parts of the job application that involve the skills he needs to DO the job. The language skills are secondary to the tasks he’s asked to do, and he loses sight of that.
Noone goes to college thinking they want to be a 401(k) administrator – but I was a polisci and journalism major who was also decent in math, and it was a perfect match for my skill set. Needed to communicate with clients and plan participants so had to be able to write well, needed to understand plan documents and tax laws/regulations, and learned Excel, pension accounting software and some actuarial math. I’m also big into project management and very detail-driven, both of which are critical for success in this field.
Learn as much as you can in every situation you find yourself. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Develop a relationship with a mentor who can show you the ropes. Ask how you can improve. If you’re bored, ask for more chances to develop expertise. Also keep in mind that the career you may have in the future may not even exist yet!
OP- read the last paragraph of CountingDown’s post above. I was going to say something very similar - this is the advice I have given to my own child.
OP. You’ve asked how we have grown. Well, since we no longer pay tuitions, H and I have just been mthe ore flexible in our life. We plan a “fly to” trip several times a year and plan or extend other weekend trips if possible.
And Basically, now that we are not paying tuition, we are having as much fun and travel as much as possible until we retire.
After we retire, we hope to keep some of it up.
Most important, what we have learned is that the best things in life are not things!!