Until recently, my post-graduation plan had been sim­ply the oblig­a­tory “get a job and pay off stu­dent debt”. I say until recently because I’ve spent the last week and a half comb­ing through pos­si­ble sit­u­a­tions for the next chap­ter of my life.

As a senior in the col­lege of busi­ness, I have a lot of options. Grad school, find­ing a job, meet­ing a rich older woman; there are so many choices to be made.

So, I’ve begun to use Petersons​.com, a web util­ity to help indi­vid­u­als search, plan, orga­nize and pre­pare for even higher roles in acad­e­mia. There are resources for finan­cial aid, study tools for the GMAT, GRE, MCAT, LSAT and all of the other assess­ments. Entire pages are devoted to prepar­ing per­sonal state­ments and mar­ket­ing your­self to schools.

Likewise, I’ve started to draft let­ters of inter­est — like a cover let­ter, but a lit­tle more ask­ing and a lit­tle less telling. Preparing to send these out to poten­tial employ­ers and putting thumb­tacks on a map of places I refuse to live (Texas).

Above all, the most help­ful and fas­ci­nat­ing part of this process is talk­ing to other peo­ple about it.

Do you have a tip or a ques­tion about Grad school, the job hunt or any­thing else regard­ing plans for your post under­grad­u­ate life? Send them to torch@ferris.edu, or com­ment on this story on fer​ris​.edu/​t​o​rch.