Student unprepared for adulting

Lauren Abbott, Staff writer

We all spend 10 months a year away at college learning about Biology, Intelligence, Math, Fashion Merchandising and every other major offered here at Mercyhurst, but there are a lot of things that college really doesn’t prepare us for.

When we graduate, we all know that we are going to leave Mercyhurst confident that we will be fully prepared to enter our chosen job fields. But what about the basic “adulting” stuff that the majority of college students do not know how to do?

I know that I have no idea how to do my own taxes, or how to fill out and file my own FAFSA. Anytime tax and FAFSA season comes around I just call up my dad and ask him to take care of anything that needs to be done.

I only know how to fill out the basic information. Anything beyond that and I am totally clueless. I also know that I am not the only one in this situation, and that many other freshmen do the same exact thing.

In iMU we briefly talked about budgeting and how to budget our spending money, but we did not talk about how to budget for expenses after college such as rent, utilities and groceries.  Especially now that Mercyhurst is moving toward getting all students to live on campus if they are not commuters, it will become even harder to learn how to budget for those essential expenses we will encounter after graduation.

Knowing how to create a simple budget is great for while we are in college, but come graduation, not knowing how to prepare and account for the other costs that we will suddenly be responsible for is frightening and thoughtless.

Also, not knowing how to handle having these expenses can really be detrimental to a student just out of college, and if a person does not learn quickly, it can have a seriously bad effect on credit scores and lead to more debt than people already have.

Another thing I do not know or feel comfortable doing is scheduling a doctor or dentist appointment.  I know other students like me who are from around here generally have their parents schedule their appointments for them.

It is easy enough for those students to go home and go to their appointment.  But what about those students who do not have this benefit?  It is scary being forced to find a new doctor and dentist in order to receive care while away from home at school.

I feel that we need a class for seniors that will go over all the real world applications that they will need to be successful adults and to help them be fully prepared to enter the workforce and to be functional adults.