I recently moved from Chicago to New York City, which has prompted me to reflect on my postgrad experience so far. Leaving Chicago was bittersweet—it was the first city I ever lived in on my own, and it changed my life for the better. In this post, I want to share a few lessons from that experience that might help others navigate the ambiguity and chaos of life after college.
Your First Year Postgrad Is Your Last Year of External Milestones
The first year of living as an adult is full of novelties and revelations. It’s your first time working a corporate job, adjusting to real responsibility, and not eating cereal for dinner (still did it a good amount of times though).
Most importantly, we reached the final step of “the plan.” And what is “the plan”? It’s the path set in motion from the day you’re born: study hard, get into a good college, secure a high-paying internship, land a return offer, and graduate. You could argue there’s some autonomy along the way—but personally, I didn’t exercise much of it.
Now that you’ve checked all the boxes—what’s next? Everything is suddenly at your discretion. Want to quit your 80-hour, soul-sucking job and travel the world? Go for it. Miss 90-minute lectures and want to go back to school? More power to you. For the first time, we’re making life-altering decisions with full ownership—though societal pressure still creeps in. For someone like me, who was pretty risk-averse growing up, that level of freedom led to a lot of analysis paralysis. I’d never had to think for myself this much before.
How did I deal with this? Honestly, I didn’t—at least not fully. You learn to sit with uncertainty, because it never really goes away. Over time, though, you build trust in yourself, and that turns into conviction.
I felt pretty lost about my career and started recruiting for new roles last year. I pushed myself to be more ambitious—networking harder, aiming higher, specializing—but eventually realized I was forcing something that didn’t align with me. I didn’t want to sacrifice more time towards work, especially when I’m not even sure I want to stay in software development. I’ve always been interested in the intersection of neuroscience and computer science, so I decided to invest more time in exploring that while continuing to do well in my current career.
Dating in Your 20s Is a Rollercoaster
This has been one of the most transformative experiences of my life, and I think everyone in their 20s should date—not just to find a partner, but to understand what they actually want in one. When I moved to Chicago, I was excited for that. For most of 2024, I was going on a few dates each month and experiencing dating in all its forms—cute dinners, long walks through the city, and genuinely fun conversations. I’ve always enjoyed getting to know people, so dating was a great avenue to do so.
However, as the novelty and excitement wear off, the emotional toll starts settle in. Things don’t work out and you get too attached. You’re not ready for a relationship, they’re not ready for a relationship. It started to feel all-or-nothing. I caught myself thinking, “If I’ve gone on all these dates and still don’t have a partner, is this a failure?”
But that’s not the healthiest way to look at it. Something I’ve realized recently is that your dating life is very intertwined with your personal growth: as you change, what you want in a partner changes as well. And especially in your 20s, you undergo major changes in your values, personality, and outlooks on life. How can you possibly know what you want in your partner if your standards and criteria are constantly evolving and changing? It’s exhausting to keep up.
So how do you deal with that? I think there’s an inflection point where you start to settle into who you are. From a biological perspective, it could be when you’re 25 years old and your frontal lobe starts to fully develop. Maybe it’s when you’ve built enough stability in your life to feel grounded. It’s probably some combination of both. Toward the end of my time in Chicago, I felt like I was starting to reach that point. However, staying there wasn’t going to get me further. Ironically, I needed to uproot my life in ways: changing jobs, moving to a new city, making new friends. This change was going to push me to get out of my comfort zone and commit to exploring my interests, friendships, and career as much as possible.
Mental Health Is the Highest ROI Investment You Can Make
I’ve been going to therapy for six years, and nothing has improved my life more as much as this. I started because I was dealing with issues that needed professional help and friends and family could only do so much. Coming from a South Asian background, this was an alienating experience as mental health is often minimized or swept under the rug, especially when no one around you is talking about it. So taking this first step felt like a big deal.
What did this journey look like? It started off with weekly sessions where I just repeatedly vented about all my problems. I was under the impression that the entire world was against me and nothing in my life would ever improve. It was exhausting. This went on for about 4 years with minuscule progress being made. I never thought I was getting better.
Things started to shift around mid-2024. I began taking antidepressants, which helped dial down the intensity of my emotions and made it easier to internalize what I’d been learning in therapy. I finally started putting these lessons into practice and changes became noticeable: my confidence, self esteem, and overall presence improved. I noticed small changes in certain settings: social outings, hobbies like basketball and dance, and work. It felt like all the work I’d put in—hundreds of therapy sessions, countless journal entries, and an overwhelming number of notes—was finally compounding. It was paying off dividends in every aspect of my life. I could talk about this for hours on end, but I’ll save that for a separate entry.
I really encourage everyone to consider therapy. Working with someone trained in certain types of therapy can do wonders for you and help you recognize patterns that you didn’t even know existed or rarely paid attention to. Your friends and family are great, but there’s always biases, discomfort, and familiarity that make full honesty harder.
I hope you’re able to take some learnings away from my experience and change your life for the better. Postgrad life can be challenging, ambiguous, and scary to tackle on, however it gives you a sense of complete agency over your life that you’ve never had before. It’s exciting and feels empowering to live your life the way you want to.
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