Graduating from any school, whether it be college or Law School, is an amazing accomplishment and is a personal testament to all to be able to stick to it till the end. Freed from my chains, I would look ahead at my life and find nothing. The consistency of the school was gone, and it is this that I come to talk about today. It is something I am still adjusting to, to this day. While coming out of Law School is a much different situation, as the Bar exam comes quickly, there is something underlying any schooling that begins to take shape.
For me, the hardest part of graduating was losing something to fall back on. Throughout college, school became a limiting factor in so many ways, and despite it, I was able to accomplish more than I could imagine. From Kindergarten all the way to my Junior year of college, I was persistently conditioned that school was my main priority and nothing should come before it. With that in mind, every year I looked forward to the next year. I knew that after summer, school would begin again. Graduating from college, I looked out and realized that what was about to come next was completely unknown, and all up to me to figure out. My experience post-graduation was quite tough.
Over the past couple of months, I have been writing up what could only be described as Nate's short stories. Some of them have already been posted in the past couple of weeks! While I don’t have much to offer in terms of wisdom, I look to offer my raw experience when I was finally able to graduate. My attempt is not to gain any pity, but to show what it was like in those months following graduation, and at the end, present what I’ve been able to learn in the process. I came here to have a message to the newly graduated, and I want to satisfy that goal. So the story begins…
Graduation came, and it was finally the moment I’d been waiting for, for 16 years of my life. Once I was done, I would never have to go to another class for the rest of my life. A victory in itself. My family had come for the ceremony, and we all enjoyed a wonderful meal together. As everyone drove away, I headed back home. No music, no podcasts, a silent ride home, and only what could be heard was my tears hitting the steering wheel. There was no celebration, there was no party, there was only reality. The reality was I just graduated, and was informed earlier in the month that Rhetoric did not have a full-time position for me quite yet. While I was sad when I found out, it all hit me on the way home from lunch with my family. For the first time in my life, I tried to visualize what life would be like going forward, and I simply couldn’t. The possibilities were so large that my tiny brain could only comprehend so little of them. The idea that each summer I had another year of school to look forward to disappeared. All that was left was an unfilled void with endless possibilities of where I may be. That car ride home, I drove in fear of what was to come next. My fear was not a known, it was an unknown.
I returned to Smithtown in June with one goal in mind: to get a full-time job at Rhetoric. There was a problem, though; I wasn’t making any money. I needed another job, and I returned to the place I vowed to return to. The Shoprite Produce section. For the next 4 weeks, every day, I did my internship at Rhetoric from nine to five, and worked the Shoprite night shift from 5-11, including weekends. I looked in the mirror at myself, confused and humbled. The person with over 100 episodes with some of the most prominent legal minds in the world, sponsors, a live event under my belt, and I’m putting bananas on display. The waiting game had begun, and the hardest part was waiting for my turn. Each day I came into Shoprite was a death blow to my confidence. And due to the time constraints of my day, I had to decide on my podcast and articles. If I knew I couldn’t give them my 110 percent, it wasn’t worth my effort. They came to a full stop in June of 2025. I remember when I first met with the head of Shoprite, and the first thing he asked me was, “Why the hell are you here?” While I appreciate his compliment, it hit me hard. Everything I had built was pointing towards the one door that had not opened quite yet. But I had to do all I could to pry it open. Those 4 weeks were the most humbling of my life.
This was only the first two months, and following my time at Shoprite, as you all know now, I did indeed get the job, and the waiting game I played was one of the best, if not the best, decisions I’ve ever made in my life.
Now the lesson I promised must come to light. It’s difficult to wrap this one in a nice, neat bow because my post-graduation journey is still ongoing. Some of you may already have jobs lined up, or internships on the way, or even a full-time position waiting for you on the other side of graduation. Finding a pathway in life can be so incredibly difficult, but if you look back on the short but long life you’ve lived thus far, you can find some inkling of what you're good at and enjoy, just as I did. What’s most important that I can impart on anyone beginning a new chapter of life is to fill your time correctly. College takes up a massive amount of time in life, between going to classes, being involved on campus, studying, and school work, and that time is given back to you. The hardest part is filling it.
Something else to note on this topic is to find activities that you enjoy. Life is short, and there is no reason not to enjoy it. Hard work is important and getting out of your comfort zone is incredibly useful, but don’t get down on yourself if you feel like you're not doing enough. That was a massive issue I have, and still encounter today in the past year, but telling myself to take it just one day at a time, and make the next hour count, helped me immensely. Build skills, have new hobbies, and since you're young, enjoy yourself a bit as well. I am not exactly the rise-and-grind type, and most of the people on the internet who are are mostly faking it.
Don’t overwhelm yourself with worry about not knowing what is coming next. It’s great to plan, and most of the time, plans don’t work out and show you another pathway to living a life of success, defined by you.
My life has been twisty, turny, and just plain all over the place, and sure, there will be some ups and downs and times where it will be difficult. My goal and learning from this year was to find those parts of life that give me purpose and pursue them relentlessly.
Congratulations to everyone who has graduated these past couple of weeks, and I wish you all the best of luck in this exciting new chapter in your lives.
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