Can there be life after college?

My graduating friend, Priya, is scared to death of the real world. \nAs Pizza Express and Kilroy's become nothing more than a college memory, she fears joining the ranks of those who can\'t lie to superiors for poor attendance or mediocre work -- those who must burst the college bubble once and for all.\nShe wants to do anything -- law school, grad school, you name it -- just to avoid facing the real world that doesn\'t understand kegs and eggs at 8 a.m. on a Little 500 Saturday; a world that doesn\'t stop for hang-overs or days where a cozy bed seems better than a cubicle.\nPicturing her life like the movie Office Space, Priya and many like her envision a world that doesn\'t end with four years and a diploma. Instead, it involves real work that may or may not be enjoyable or even make an impact in society or in the lives of others.\nThis whole concept of the \"real world\" as we college students deem it, is nothing like MTV\'s reality based sensationalism. Just ask "Real World" cast members Puck and Julie the Union Board brought to speak last Wednesday night. They gave a small sense of reality and a larger sense of what it is like not to be an average person.\nAn average life, an average salary -- the theme of mediocrity isn\'t appealing is it? It is hard to envision life after college and the fact that companies have turned to hiring freezes rather than signing bonuses.\nIt is easy to see life as simply average in the future -- a world with a 9-5 job, a decent family, in a community that isn\'t nearly glamorous as Manhattan\'s Upper East Side or Brentwood in Los Angeles.\nWhen I was in third grade, I used to think I would be a movie star and fame and fortune was the only way. I would woo my audiences with my dramatic capabilities -- changing their lives by bringing tears to their eyes. While some of my peers at the time wanted to be firefighters and policemen, we all just really wanted to save the world and many of us probably still do.\nNow as the real world looms ahead for many of my friends, I see that maybe not that much has changed since the elementary education days.\nWhile there may be job freezes and a life ahead that is not an endless party, there is still the potential for every graduate to be something great. \nBeing great or doing well doesn\'t have to involve a million fans or a fat bank account, instead it can simply be a great journey, with a few milestones and many memories.\nI believe that as the years pass and the memories of the time spent as a Hoosier begin to fade, the real world will become so much greater than a life with meal points and Bursar bills. \nWhile IU will always be a milestone, it will be hard to imagine what life is like back in the bubble that popped as the career and independence set in. \nAnd when Priya and her classmates to return to IU for their reunions somewhere down the road, they will look at different landmarks with vivid memories, but they will, in fact, see it again for the first time.\nAs those who are graduating step into the real world tomorrow, ending one milestone, they will take with them a collage of amazing memories as they head with greatness, on to the next monument of their lives, whatever it may be.