Advice from a Retiree to a College Student

I just got back from a visit with my youth. 

Every year or two, Doug and I like to get down to Santa Barbara to replace our fraying UCSB sweatshirts.  As we make the five-hour drive, the memories creep back.  When I get a whiff of that tar in the air, I know campus is close.  Oh that smell of salty ocean air mixed with tar, I love it so.  Nothing brings back the memories like that oily scent of tar.

The memories.  My first drive down there with Kim, our boxes packed to the sunroof of my Volkswagen, the two of us belting along with Hall and Oates.  Econ 101, Professor Watson, bad grades.  My view of the sunrise over the ocean from my top bunk in San Miguel Dorm.   (Google it, it really did face east AND the ocean.)  Procrastination, guilt, and did I mention bad grades?

What ever happened to my ex-boyfriend, my ex-roommate, my abandoned bike?  Why didn’t I take more walks on the beach, try golf class, or study harder?  And the biggest question of all, why did I spend four years at one of the loveliest spots on earth yearning for it to be over so I could get on to living my “real” life?

Really, I did.   I couldn’t wait to get out, school felt like such a waste of time to me.  I loved working at my part-time jobs:  as a secretary at a law office, as a staff accountant at an accounting firm, and in HR for the 1984 Summer Olympics.  I hated the map room gig and my short stint at the title company, but even those felt real, like I was actually doing something, not just studying to do something someday.

So why, when I walk around campus, am I jealous of the students?  Why do I wish I could be them?  Get a chance to do it all over again and savor it?  A chance to do it without the guilt, the guilt of not studying enough.  A chance to let myself have fun without agonizing that I should have been studying instead.

Because grown-up Sydney has some perspective to share with college-student Sydney:  It doesn’t matter that you will graduate with a 2.97 GPA.  You will go on to have a successful career in finance, a happy marriage to your college sweetheart, and get this, to retire by the time you turn 44.  So go ahead, just enjoy it!

Related Posts:

            Road Tripping in Retirement

            A Prius as a Metaphor for Retirement

            Money and Graduation Season

 

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Comments

[Tamara]

Syd, I was in Santa Barbara this weekend as well. We were RV'ing up the coast at Refugio State Beach, but we came into town on Friday to visit the mission, see the chalk art, and have lunch at my new favorite vegan restaurant on State Street - Adama.

Santa Barbara has to be one of the loveliest places on earth to be sure. I'm glad you enjoyed your trip down memory lane.

[Canadianmdinvestor]

I was with you, until the Hall & Oates bit!!

Always entertaining posts!!!

[guinness416]

I always like the photos on your posts. Are you a native Californian?

I have inlaws living in Santa Barbara who want to move to AZ. Barmy! I went to a technical college in the middle of dirty, rainy Dublin. I loved my college days and even then didn't want them to end, but college me is jealous of college you, whatever the GPAs!

[Banjo Steve]

Syd, I'm surprised. For me, retirement is like being a college student on perpetual vacation - with fewer money worries and NO grade point concerns. College for me was great, too, and I do have nostalgia about being in a 20 year old body again, but I still wouldn't trade back.

[deegee]

I'm with Banjo Steve. My retirement reminds me a lot of the 6-week stretch between my last final exam as a college student and my first day of work at my new, full-time job. I had a lot of fun in those 6 weeks although I had to find a new place to live and move into that place in my final day of pure freedom.

I admire the get-up-and-go energy I had back then compared to these days but I like the permanent freedom I have now compared to the relatively temporary pure freedom I had back then.

[Retired Syd]

@Tamara: We just missed you--we got there on Tuesday.

@CanadianMD: Well then perhaps you relate to their 1982 Billboard Hit "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)."

@Guiness: Yes, I'm a native, born in San Francisco. You mean you have crazy in laws--I would take Santa Barbara over AZ any day of the week (no offense AZ.)

@Steve & Deegee: For me, retirement is WAY better than college. In fact, that whole "college will be the best years of your life" always seemed like crap to me. For me, the best years were after college--even the years I was working were better! But I still do envy the students and would love to join them knowing what I know now. I don't know, maybe you're right, maybe it's just my 20-year-old body I want back!

[Grace]

I was further north from Santa Barbara when I graduated--we had beaches, but they were windy and cold! But what we did not have, and what may make your advice outdated, were massive student loans. In fact, I had no loans until graduate school in spite of the fact that my parents were working class and could not afford to help me out much. And the loans I took out for graduate school (OK, this was in the early '70's!) totaled less than $10,000. Still, I share your basic point--I, too, wish I had spent more time just enjoying college and enjoying myself at college.

[phoenix nursing home abuse attorney]

Couldn't agree with you more! Learning to feel okay with how things are going and not penalizing yourself for having fun is so important. Everything seems to work itself out in the end and you need to enjoy the happiest moments, especially when they're taking place.

[Retired Syd]

@Grace: I know! I just read an article about student loan debt, that something like 95% of kids graduate with it now, and the outstanding student loan debt now eclipses the balance of all other consumer debt! It's awful! I don't know the system can continue this way. How will they ever dig out of this?

Anyway, a digression I realize, but it is a timely discussion. And think about how hard it is to save for retirement -- how will this next generation get there when they are saddled with such debt at the beginning of their careers?

[Suzanne Vosbikian]

Syd,
Great walk down memory lane. One of my best friends swears that the world is run by C students. We continue to reassure our daughter that real life does not resemble college at all.

[deegee]

Good point about the college debt, Syd. I can't imagine the angst and difficulties a recent graduate faces with student loan debt which is equal to 2 or 3 times (or more) of one's annual salary (if one can get a job) while trying to pay all the bills.

Even though I went to an expensive private school (NYU) in the early 1980s, my total student loan debt was only about 35% of one year's salary, so it was not a huge burden in paying it off (and I paid it off in 18 months thanks in part to having a few thousand dollars left in an old bank account I had nearly forgotten about).

[fred doe]

Wait a minute! YOU ABANDONED YOUR BIKE! I'll be looking at your blog in a whole different light from now on.

[Retired Syd]

@Fred: Yeah, and it took me almost 15 years to get another one!

[jlcollinsnh]

Hey Syd....

I've seen your comments around other sites and enjoyed them but for some reason am just now making my way here. So, howdy.

I l-o-v-e-d my undergraduate years. It was the perfect blend of:

a little and interesting work
bright people
free time

It was a simple life and all the richer for it. I could make enough during the summers to pay for the rest of the year, even if some of the meals were sparse; white rice and ketchup was a staple. (sparse, not healthy)

fortunately I was aware of it at the time and, oh yeah, I'd like my 20-year-old body back, too. Hell. the 25-year-old version would do.

[Bill Birnbaum]

When my son Larry went off to college (Pepperdine University in Malibu, CA), I advised him that he'd learn more outside of the classroom than inside the classroom. And indeed he did. Four years of college life molded him into a mature young man. Bill

[Tom Sightings]

I went to college on the east coast, with no beach in sight, but I also remember feeling like time was standing still, that I was wasting my life, that I needed to get on with what I wanted to do (not that I knew what I wanted to do.)

But wait a second, I did study and got a 3.5 gpa . . . and I didn't get to retire at age 44. I instead got laid off at age 53! Where did I do wrong?

(I know, I didn't go into finance, I was an English major.)

[Retired Syd]

Well, that English major served you well, in my opinion. That's probably why you are such a great writer.

[Military Colleges]

Great advice; its not about the destination but the journey. Many college don't take the time to enjoy the present.