Full disclosure: I graduated college a LONG time ago. The year was 1975 to be exact. Gerald Ford was President of the United States, gas was 44 cents per gallon, and the Cold War was on. The Vietnam War was still raging, and some kid named Bill Gates was founding something called Microsoft in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Related: 5 Tips For Recent Grads Entering The Workforce My first job as a teacher in a rural school district in Virginia paid me $5,800 a year…that’s right, a YEAR! I was paid in 10 installments, so my check before taxes was $580 per month, and my rent was $180. I split that with my roommate (until she moved out). I managed by eating yogurt for lunch every day. (I could buy 5 for a $1.00 on special every week.) My dad would occasionally give me a $20, and eventually, I got a second job to help supplement an income that wasn’t enough to pay my bills on its own. My second year out, I took a comparable job teaching in a neighboring district and got a $4000 raise. I thought I had died and gone to heaven! Now that I look back on it, I realize just how narcissistic I was. I was 23 years old, and I was only barely aware of what was going on in the world because I watched the 6:00 news…there weren’t as many channels to watch, and all you could watch at 6:00 was the news. Imagine! What was going on in the “world,” however, had little to do with me…I thought. I was just trying to make it from day to day. I cared nothing about much of anything except my small little world and my even smaller daily routine. Now that I am at the other end of my career, looking back, there are things that I wish I had known as I accepted my diploma in June of 1975, and as new graduates prepare to accept their diplomas, I would like to offer the following four bits of advice: