1001 Things Every Graduate Should Know: How to Succeed in the Adult World

by Harry H. Harrison Jr.

Think final exams are stressful? Wait until you graduate. Then you'll know stress. Transforming yourself from a high school senior to a college freshman is stressful enough to cause heart palpitations. Going straight to full-time employment will have you living on Excedrin. You many think you're ready to blow out of the hosue, but you're not ready for what awaits. You need to learn a few things. Well, maybe a thousand or so things. The fact is, 50 percent of high school graduates who leave home come back sooner or later without a degree, and weighted down by heftly credit-card balances. So start here. 1001 Things Every Graduate Should Know is jarringly honest, cliche-free, and bitingly funny. A lot like life. Don't leave high school without it.

Genres: Nonfiction

302 pages, Paperback

First published April 7, 2011

About the author

Harry H. Harrison Jr. is a parenting expert and author of 1,001 Things It Means to Be a Dad and other 1,001 Things books from Thomas Nelson. For many years, he operated his own award-winning creative consultancy firm, Harrison Creative Directions.

Reviews

[Devin Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has great advice. There are a few numbers that felt like filler numbers to get to 1001 because it’s just what everybody already knows. For example something like “show up to class early”. I feel like everybody knows that some people just don’t do it. In the beginning of the book, I felt that the tone was a little bit condescending, but it got better throughout the book. So overall pretty good definitely things to put more thought into.

[Alexandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

The vast majority of the advice in here is very sound, though quite a bit of it is also very obvious, like "you need to know to start getting A's early" . The thing I like least, though, is that Harrison's tone alternates between condescending and belligerent. I don't know why anyone would voluntarily read an advice book that refers to them in this kind of tone: "like "You need to know where your classes are before school starts. This small gesture says 'Hey, I have a brain and I'm using it!'" And sometimes the statements border on offensive, like when Harrison files the symptoms of clinical depression under "You need to know you've become mental if..." I know he means well, but seriously?! People with depression are not crazy. This is the twenty-first century; he should know that.

[Hardcover Harlot · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was with this book for the first part. Very harsh at times, but good advice. But about halfway through, it got SUPER Jesus-y. "743. You need to know an abortion will haunt both parents for the rest of your lives." Besides the pronoun-antecedent disagreement, that's *super* judgmental. The further I got, the more God references there were.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard core truth. No sugar coating here.

You should know.