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Five For Your First Five: Own Your Career and Life After College
Young adults making their way from college to life-after-college face a multitude of decisions, challenges, and opportunities. How do you build skills and experiences that will benefit you in the future, when you are on the lowest rung of the professional ladder, or in a job that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere? How do you balance creating a life with professional demands when your time is not your own? How do you ensure you are practicing self-care – physically, mentally, financially, and emotionally – when you don’t know what the resources are to do that? How do you build community and find friends? How do you build your network and find mentors? And, how do you take ownership for what comes next?
These and many others are the questions that all young professionals should be asking themselves, especially in the critical first five years out of college. This is the time when you will discover more about yourself than at any other point in your life. You will discover strengths, interests, and beliefs that will guide your future career and life decisions. You will learn professional and life skills and habits that will be the foundation for your future professional selves. You will begin to discern what matters to you, and begin to define what a meaningful life looks like, for you. And, you largely will be expected to do all of this work on your own. Where do you begin?
FIVE FOR YOUR FIRST FIVE is based on twenty years of experience working with college students and young adults as they make this sometimes challenging and overwhelming transition from college to life-after-college. It combines real-life stories and experiences, from young adults who have already navigated through these waters, with tools, strategies, discussion, and reflection questions. The reader is encouraged to do real, intentional work while exploring the five key areas: Do the Work, Build a Life, Create Community, Practice Reflection, and Own What’s Next. Part workbook, part wise counselor and mentor, FIVE FOR YOUR FIRST FIVE provides meaningful insight into what can happen when you truly take ownership for your career and life.
***
"Dr. Allison McWilliams has hit the nail right on the head and provides focused, effective and actionable ideas for recent college grads who are getting too much inspiration and too little useable help addressing the substantial challenge of building their lives after college. Much of the literature for this audience patronizingly over-compliments them ("You are amazing and can do anything!') or over-criticizes them ("Today's young adults are so entitled - they're impossible!"). Neither of these categorizations is accurate or helpful - quite the opposite. Dr. McWilliams distills her substantial experience in working in some of the most advanced career-preparatory institutions in the country well by picking five key areas for grads to focus their efforts in building a life they own and can love. Her assessments of what's needed directly complements our decade-plus of work in the Stanford Life Design Lab. Her counsel spans the wide swath of necessary critical skills ranging from forming deep habits of personal reflection to navigating the tactical constraints of that tough first job out of college many grads will get. She tells it like it is without making assumptions or judgments about her reader and balances artfully conversing with her reader and challenging them via exercises to do the work. Like Dr. McWilliams, our team believes that successfully journeying those first five years after graduation (and defining what success is wisely!) is terrifically important. If you love anyone who is currently or about to be in those five years, do them the kindness of giving them this book.
These and many others are the questions that all young professionals should be asking themselves, especially in the critical first five years out of college. This is the time when you will discover more about yourself than at any other point in your life. You will discover strengths, interests, and beliefs that will guide your future career and life decisions. You will learn professional and life skills and habits that will be the foundation for your future professional selves. You will begin to discern what matters to you, and begin to define what a meaningful life looks like, for you. And, you largely will be expected to do all of this work on your own. Where do you begin?
FIVE FOR YOUR FIRST FIVE is based on twenty years of experience working with college students and young adults as they make this sometimes challenging and overwhelming transition from college to life-after-college. It combines real-life stories and experiences, from young adults who have already navigated through these waters, with tools, strategies, discussion, and reflection questions. The reader is encouraged to do real, intentional work while exploring the five key areas: Do the Work, Build a Life, Create Community, Practice Reflection, and Own What’s Next. Part workbook, part wise counselor and mentor, FIVE FOR YOUR FIRST FIVE provides meaningful insight into what can happen when you truly take ownership for your career and life.
***
"Dr. Allison McWilliams has hit the nail right on the head and provides focused, effective and actionable ideas for recent college grads who are getting too much inspiration and too little useable help addressing the substantial challenge of building their lives after college. Much of the literature for this audience patronizingly over-compliments them ("You are amazing and can do anything!') or over-criticizes them ("Today's young adults are so entitled - they're impossible!"). Neither of these categorizations is accurate or helpful - quite the opposite. Dr. McWilliams distills her substantial experience in working in some of the most advanced career-preparatory institutions in the country well by picking five key areas for grads to focus their efforts in building a life they own and can love. Her assessments of what's needed directly complements our decade-plus of work in the Stanford Life Design Lab. Her counsel spans the wide swath of necessary critical skills ranging from forming deep habits of personal reflection to navigating the tactical constraints of that tough first job out of college many grads will get. She tells it like it is without making assumptions or judgments about her reader and balances artfully conversing with her reader and challenging them via exercises to do the work. Like Dr. McWilliams, our team believes that successfully journeying those first five years after graduation (and defining what success is wisely!) is terrifically important. If you love anyone who is currently or about to be in those five years, do them the kindness of giving them this book.
166 pages, Paperback
Published August 24, 2017
5 people are currently reading
40 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 13, 2019
This book is a MUST READ for any recent college graduate or new professional. Frankly the advice in this book applies to ANY working professional, no matter how long you’ve been out of college. Allison McWilliams has filled this book with tactical and practical nuggets of wisdom and advice that are achievable, relevant, and important for transitioning into a well-balanced and successful life post college. It’s as if Allison were your wise older sister sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly of adulting. And not just the obvious advice (work hard, save money, etc), she gives you the “real scoop” and hard truths about transitioning into the working world - “no one is ever going to care as much as you do about your life and your career as you” (Pg 22). This isn’t some dry “how to adult” book, but rather a rich resource infused with real stories, humorous anecdotes and practical reflection questions and exercises. This book reads as if Allison herself is sitting across the table from you sharing her advice over a cup of coffee or a cold beer. Do yourself (or your fave young adult) a favor and READ this book!
April 12, 2021
Read this 30+ years after graduating from university- wish I would have had it then. Excellent tips in creating an autonomous life, building out your career and creating reflective practices for collecting data for decision making. Pragmatic. Straight forward.
April 3, 2018
I read this book for work and it has a lot of sugar advice for college students about to graduate as well as for young professionals making choices about their early careers.
May 21, 2018
Great book for recent grads trying to find themselves after college!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews