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Saturday, July 18, 2020

My First Year Post-grad: Reflection + future goals






It’s so crazy to believe that I graduated from college one whole year ago.

On one hand, It feels like time has literally zipped by so FAST. But honestly, so much has changed and I feel like I have grown so much.


First of all, let’s talk about how I graduated with absolutely NO JOB like many recent grads do. And I feel like so many people feel ashamed of that, but they shouldn’t be. For me, the interview and job application was the worst ever, and I still felt like there wasn’t any progress.


I sent in so many applications and connected with so many people on LinkedIn, but I still encountered a huge STRUGGLE. But I just kept going, and I decided to focus on what I did have. I had an internship and I had my blog, Festively Faith. During that time, my mom would always tell me, “What you focus on expands.” So that’s exactly what I did. I decided to focus on those things like my blog and, and eventually, other opportunities started coming my way.


Although I didn’t have a job right away, I did have additional time that I could dedicate to growing my blog, and as a result, I decided to grow that to a bigger scale and take it more seriously. I gained my first paid partnership that summer, and I was absolutely SHOOK! I temporarily went back to my high school serving job, but I continually planted seeds for my future (which I am so thankful for looking back.)


Because what started out as a season of uncertainty, quickly turned into a season of preparation and opportunity. Because what first started out as one internship, eventually turned it to two internships when I secured an internship at the best beauty company ever (that just so happens to be headquartered in my home town.) 




And not to suddenly Fast Forward my post-grad story, but let’s just say I ended up securing a job at the beauty company too which leads me to now working in my dream position doing social media. Everything seems so surreal, but today I am super excited to just reflect on it, and also share some goals I have for the future.



Honestly, I feel like I have accomplished so much, and it feels so good to reflect because sometimes I feel like so many of us are in a rush to get the next stage, that we don’t realize how much we have accomplished. Sometimes you just need to say: “I did that!” I really did! But also I am excited to see what else I can do within the next few years. Which leads me to my future goals for the next few years.


Future Goals: 

Brand Goals: 

One goal I have is to continually grow my personal brand Festively Faith by being consistent and continually strategizing. I would love to increase my readership on the blog, and grow on additional platforms as well. And I mean, blowing up on TikTok is also somewhere in there lol.

But one main goal of mine is to develop some sort of consistent income with blogging, and maybe become established enough to help and support other smaller bloggers in some way or another.


Educational Goals:

I feel like many recent grads have been asked the question “do you want to go back to school?”

For me, my answer to this was immediately “NO” because I just dreaded the thought of willingly going back to school after I had just worked so hard in undergrad.


But since I’ve started my career, sometimes I do think about potentially furthering my education in the next few years. As you all know, I work in social media marketing so I think as I grow in my field, a MBA or some sort of marketing program or certification could really help leverage myself into higher positions. The more time I’m out of school, the more time I consider possibly getting some kind of additional certification or higher education degree.


But to be honest, the grad school process and the application process seemed extremely intimidating for a long time. People who I knew were attending grad school directly after undergrad always said the same thing: “That it was A LOT.”


But lately I have been using this platform called Admit.me to help me with starting my research, and it’s been SO helpful. 




But Admit.me me is not just research. To put it simply, Admit.me is a platform built by admissions experts for those who are interested in higher education. And when I tell you, this makes the higher education process SO EASY and wayyyy less intimidating, I am so serious (and the best part about it is that it’s free!)


Although, I think grad school is a farther down the line for me in terms of my future goals, I think Admit.me is a great place to start even if you are just a little curious about the graduate school process. And I’m happy to say, I am super excited to say that Admit.me is partnering with me on today’s blog post.


Here’s how it works:


1. First, make a free account on Admit.me and fill out the needed information (takes less than 5 minutes.)

 2. Getting your AMI. Your AMI is your Admit.me Index which is basically a credit score of admissions that’s determined from an expert vetted algorithm. After you fill out the AMI information, it will calculate your AMI number. This number represents the chance of acceptance to any given school. 

3. Once you get your AMI, it then matches you with a list of schools (easy, right!?) This feature is perfect for people who don’t know where to start when determining a school. Plus the school selection feature gives a comparison between your AMI and a school’s AMI and categorizes each school into stretch, target, and safety.

4. And the final feature it offers is the action plan feature that breaks down all the steps of the grad school process into an organized weekly task list (my fave part is that it lists out the hours needed to complete each task. So GENIUS!)


And especially since many of us are still at home, and have a little more free time on our hands, I think looking into grad school is such a great use of time. For me, I still have a few more years before I am interested in going back to school, but Admit.me makes it so easy for me to prepare for that time. I think applying to grad school is one of those things that aren’t talked about freely, and especially for those of us who are no longer in college and not in contact with our advisors. Admit.me is really helping me make my educational goals attainable, and I am so excited to dive deeper into the platform more in the next few months.


To register, click here





Career Goals

For my career goals, that is something I am still kind of determining. I would love to work my way up in some kind of manager role within marketing, and just continue to get better at my day to day tasks. The one thing with social media, is that things are always updating. A goal for me in my 9-5 is just to continually get better and stronger. I would also like to continue growing my freelance work, and potentially working with additional clients in the coming years.


Overall, with all my goals, I just want to get to a place where I can support myself, and fund my expensive taste lol. But so far, I am so proud of myself and how far I have come during this first year of post-grad life.



***This is a sponsored post in partnership with Admit.me All words and opinions are my own! Thanks for supporting these brands which help keep my blog alive and well.***


Add your comment

  1. Admit.me sounds like a very helpful tool to use to evaluate and analyze post grad goals.

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