A New Graduate’s Guide to Adulting: 3 Graduation Tips

Congratulations, graduate! You’ve survived lesson plans, late nights, and student teaching. You crossed the stage at graduation; now what? Whether you’ve landed your first teaching job or are still searching, this episode will help you transition from cap and gown to classroom and beyond. Here are three graduation tips to focus on as you step into this exciting new chapter.

Graduation Tip 1: Find the Right Job Fit

Job hunting can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to take over your life. Here’s how to stay focused and strategic:

• Use a district comparison chart to evaluate schools based on location, culture, and benefits.

  
  

Copy of District Research Doc .xlsx

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• Bookmark the HR pages of the districts you are interested in.

• Keep track of application deadlines and requirements.

• Tailor your resume to highlight your student teaching experiences using the Danielson Framework.

- Update your resume with the latest student teaching experiences.

- Align your resume with the Danielson Framework for Teaching.

- Highlight skills like planning, engaging students, using technology, and collaboration.

• Practice interview questions and prepare stories that showcase your classroom skills.

- Practice answers to common interview questions.

- Prepare stories that demonstrate your skills and experiences.

- Reach out to your network for mock interviews and feedback.

- View Interview Success Strategies for Educators.

- Check out Interview 101 Featuring Fred Yeakey.

• Tap into your network — professors, mentors, and cooperating teachers can be valuable resources.

- Reach out to professionals for job leads.

- Attend job fairs and networking events.

- Join professional organizations and online communities.

• Stay open-minded: Your first job doesn’t have to be your forever job. It’s simply a stepping stone.

  
  

Graduation Tip 2: Budgeting, DIY, and Meal Prep

They don’t teach this in college, but it’s essential for real life.

Budgeting Basics

Understanding budgeting is vital for financial stability. Here are the essentials:

• Track your after-tax income and monthly expenses.

• Set up automatic transfers to savings.

• Use auto-pay for bills to avoid late fees.

• Having goals makes budgeting motivating. Small wins lead to significant progress.

  
  

What to Include in Your Budget

Divide your income into three key categories:

• 50% Needs: This portion covers essentials like rent, utilities, gas, food, insurance, and transportation.

• 30% Wants: This money is dedicated to interests, hobbies, or even that daily coffee.

• 20% Savings/Debt: Focus on building an emergency fund, paying student loans, and saving for retirement.

  
  

Start an Emergency Fund

Begin with $10 a week, and watch it grow over time. You can increase the amount as your financial situation improves. Your future self will thank you!

Responsible Credit Card Use

Credit cards can be useful, but remember: with great power comes great responsibility. Look for cards that offer cash back or travel points. Always aim to pay off your balance to avoid debt.

DIY Life Skills

Learning DIY skills is also a crucial part of adulting:

• House Maintenance: Know how to reset a breaker, change light bulbs, and maintain appliances.

• Cleaning Routine: Design a cleaning schedule, such as dedicating two hours every Sunday.

• Go-to Meals: Master three basic meals like spaghetti, tacos, or pancakes.

- Cook in batches and freeze leftovers to save time and money.

Graduation Tip 3: Grow as a Future Teacher

Even if you don’t have a job lined up yet, you can still grow professionally:

• Update your LinkedIn: Add certifications and skills, and upload a professional photo.

• Keep monitoring district HR pages to stay informed about job openings.

• Challenge yourself to practice a new skill each month, whether it’s cooking, budgeting, or classroom technology.

You are enough, just as you are. Embrace that your journey is just beginning.

5 Quick Wins You Can Do Today

Here are five small but powerful actions you can take right now:

1. Update your resume and LinkedIn profile.

• Refresh your LinkedIn profile with certifications and skills.

• Add a professional photo.

• Include a detailed bio and your educational history.




2. Bookmark three school districts you’re interested in.

3. Practice cooking one meal you want to master.

4. Set up a basic budget using a free template or app.

5. Do something fun for yourself.

   
   
   
   

You’re not alone. Every new graduate feels a little uncertain, but you’ve already proven you can handle challenges. Keep showing up for yourself and your future students.

Connect with Dr. Sam Fecich

Want to continue the conversation beyond the podcast? You can connect with me online for more resources, inspiration, and support tailored to future educators and teachers.

🌐 Visit Dr. Sam’s website for podcast episodes, blog posts, freebies, and more tools to empower your teaching journey.

Sponsored by: "What's your student teacher superpower?" Click here to take the free quiz!

📸 Tag me on Instagram @sfecich so I can share your thoughts in my stories. Remember, EDUmagicians, you have the EduMagic within you. 🧡

A New Graduate’s Guide to Adulting Transcript

Hello, EDU magicians and welcome back to another episode of the EDU Magic podcast. My name is Dr. Sam Feic, and today we are talking all about fresh diplomas to fresh starts. We're gonna be talking to you, a brand new graduate congratulations, friends. You did it.

You survived the all-nighters, the lesson plans, the reflections, the student teaching, and everything along the way. Right now, what's next? You cross the stage at graduation. You got your diploma, maybe you have a job offer, maybe you don't. What happens next when you turn that page? That is what we're talking about today.

I have four tips for you that we're gonna be discussing. The first one is finding the right fit for you regarding jobs. The second segment is adulting 1 0 1. The third is growing as a future teacher. And the last segment is all about quick wins. Five things you can do right after this episode.

To get ready to adult. Alright, so let's hop into our first segment, finding the right job fit for you, how to hunt for that job without it taking over all of your time. So I know that the job search can be really tough and there's tons of episodes that I've already done all about job searching and I'll link them down below.

All right. So remember, whenever your job searching is not just about finding any job or applying to all the jobs, it's about finding the right job for you, the right fit for you at the right school, the right district, the right location. So a few things to think about. Whenever you're applying for jobs, make sure that you're using that district comparison chart.

You can find it. In the show notes for today, I'll link it in there. And it's a beautiful chart that compares lots of districts and schools. Also, it's gonna help you with your research and, researching different schools.

So let's go ahead and sharpen up that resume. We're gonna make sure that in our resume for student teaching, we are describing our student teaching experience aligned to the Danielson framework for teaching. We're gonna talk about planning and prep, engaging students in learning, using technology, using quality discussion prompts and techniques, higher level thinking, bloom's taxonomy, any creative projects that you've done, anything where you've collaborated and worked with the community or with family.

You're also gonna practice your interview skills. I know it might sound a little silly, but go ahead and practice your answers to comment, interview questions, and if you're wondering what are some common interview questions, don't worry. I got you covered. I have a link to an episode with 10 comment interview questions.

So go ahead and practice those, but be ready to talk about and share stories during student teaching or during field experience where you had to handle any challenges. How you built relationships with students, how you assess students, how you use data, and how you collaborated with families. You're also gonna wanna reach out to your network, reach out to your professors, your cooperating teachers, and see if they're they of any openings or keep you in mind for anything that's coming up this summer and remember, try to stay open to new opportunities.

Maybe this job that you're applying for may not be your forever job, but it might be a nice first step into the classroom. So remember that when you don't hear back, it's not failure. There are many applicants that are going in for that same position that you have. Use it as a learning opportunity, as a redirection that's gonna get you to the right school at the right place.

So keep showing up for yourself, for your future students, and please do not get discouraged. Make sure that you're updating your resume, updating your cover letter, and customizing that for each. District and school that you are applying to. Alright, so our next segment is talking about adulting 1 0 1 things that they don't teach you in college, because yeah, you can't live on TER for the rest of your life.

So first of all, let's talk about some budgeting. You're gonna wanna make sure that you look at your income that you're bringing back from taxes and you're gonna wanna look at how much do you need to spend and get your. Budgeting on track. How much is rent? How much is food? How much is gas? How much is transportation?

How much are utilities, all those types of things. You're gonna wanna come up with a plan or a budget for the month and for the year. You're gonna wanna make sure that you budget money for things, for the needs, the rent, the utilities, the travel, those types of things. You're gonna wanna budget for any wants.

Yes. That quick Starbucks run. And then you're also on a budget for savings, so you wanna have a nice little. Emergency saving stash. And that can start with 10 bucks a week or 10 bucks every two weeks. And that starts to add up after a while. So make sure you track your spending, make sure you save for the needs that you have.

You're gonna also wanna think about not only the budgeting side, but a little bit of D-I-D-I-Y, right? So what are some maintenance things that you can do on your own? Do you know how to reset a breaker? Do you know how to change a light bulb?

Do you know how to change the batteries in your smoke detector or your carbon, monoxide detector? Do you know how to do refrigerator maintenance like that filter on your fridge? Yep. That might need to be changed. How to fix the microwave, all those types of things. So maybe brush up on some DIY skills and get yourself into a schedule to clean and maintain your home.

For us, it's every Sunday we take about two hours. We do vacuum dust. Catch up on laundry, those types of things. And we also meal plan for the week. So that might be helpful too. When you're doing some meal planning, try to find three meals that you are really good at. Like my, I am getting a lot better with pancakes.

My daughter loves pancakes, so I'm trying that. I do fluffy pancakes, which might sound a little basic, but hey, it works for us also in our household. We are big fans of spaghetti and tacos and chicken and rice. So think about three things that you are really good or want to get good at cooking and try to master those.

And that's gonna help you out too when it comes to meal prep for dinners. And you can also take those for lunches because it helps to save time, saves money, and that's one best decision you don't have to make. We also, in our household, we have movie night on Friday, so we always get pizza and we get a pizza probably about twice.

Twice a month. 'cause we will get a medium and then we'll only eat half of it and then freeze the rest for the next week. Freeze your meals are also really good to be thinking about. You're also gonna wanna think about, any discounts at stores with your teacher id. So make sure you do some research on that.

And I'll link to, a post that I have called the Stylish Student Teacher. And in that post my guest talks about some different. Ways to save with your teacher, card. So that'll be really fun. All right, the next one is a little bit of a pep dog. So I hope that, take this, with an open mind.

So please know that when you cross that stage at graduation, and even that student who has the job, knows where they're going, does not have it all figured out, and that's okay. You don't have to have it all figured out whenever you cross that stage at graduation. Please know. That you are enough just as you are right now in this moment.

You, my friend, are enough. You are going to be a great teacher. You're gonna impact students in so many ways. Sometimes we just have to be patient and wait for our timing, and that's okay. Just know that you are enough. You are also. Not alone. You're not the only one that doesn't have a job secured.

You're not the only one that didn't graduate summa cum laude. And that's okay. 'cause remember, you're enough and you're gonna keep going. And I am so proud of you and all of the challenges that you have accomplished and overcome to this moment, to right now. I'm so proud of you and I can't wait to see the amazing things that you do in your classrooms this fall.

Alright, let's talk about five quick wins that you can do right after this episode to have some quick wins. First, we're gonna talk about updating your resume and LinkedIn. Head on over to LinkedIn, blow off that virtual dust. And if you're not familiar with LinkedIn, guess what?

I got a link to help you out with that. So there's a whole episode about LinkedIn. Update your resume on LinkedIn, update your skills, update your education, your certification, your bio, and your image. How about if applying to three jobs is a little scary?

How about you go and update your general application that goes out to all the schools? How about you look through that district comparison chart that you're gonna grab in the show notes and open that up and see what it's all about. How about you instead go ahead and you bookmark three districts that you're interested in and you bookmark their homepage and their HR pages so you can look to see when they have, openings.

I also want you to practice cooking one meal, one meal that you wanna get really good at. So maybe you wanna get really good at mastering that dippy egg or that scrambled egg. Go ahead and try out one new meal. Next I want you to try setting up a budget and if you need help with that, check out the show notes because there's a simple budget plan for you to start working on to, save money for your savings, do some budgeting with needs and wants, and then also do something fun.

Do something that you enjoy this week. Alright, friends, if you love this episode, make sure you share that with a fellow graduate. Leave a review, send me a message over on Instagram.

Bye for now.