10 Real Life Skills You Need Before You Graduate

10 Real Life Skills You Need Before You Graduate Getting Ready to Enter the Real World You're probably not going to use Avogadro's number in your normal, everyday life. You probably won't need to summarize the events of the Second Boer War over coffee with your new girlfriend. What you will need to survive--and thrive--are real, practical skills and knowledge. Related Articles 10 Things You Learn in College That Have Nothing to Do With Your Classes 10 Things You Learn in College That Have Nothing to Do With Your Classes Negotiating Student Loan Debt Negotiating Student Loan Debt 10 Things Your Pre-Teen Should Know How to Do 10 Things Your Pre-Teen Should Know How to Do How to Not Be Broke All the Time It's a not-so-subtle irony that many young people graduate from college saddled with overwhelming levels of student debt, only to lack the know-how to manage their money effectively and pay down that debt in as timely a fashion as possible. Many new graduates don't know how to budget their money and end up digging themselves an even deeper hole with credit card debt. Money may not buy happiness, but mounds of debt and poor money management can sure make it hard to be happy. Go around buying $7 lattes every day and suddenly you can't pay the utility bill to keep the lights on at the end of the month. Set a budget and stick to it. How to Deal With Taxes No matter what you choose to study in college, you'll need to get a job at some point. Even the art history major who is now serving up those $7 lattes needs to file an income tax return each year. Most people don't know the first thing about the remarkably complicated world of income tax, let alone how to estimate their tax refund without major assistance from an accountant. Newsflash: before you go celebrating about that big refund you just got, realize all you did was overpay all year long and the government just swindled you for an interest-free loan. It's your money. You deserve to keep it. How to Avoid Getting All Funked Up This has nothing to do with getting down with your bad self as you flail your arms uncontrollably to some Bruno Mars track. This "Uptown Funk" has to do with your ability to handle yourself in the bathroom and not so much on the dance floor. Personal hygiene, regardless of situation or circumstance, needs to take priority. Don't be the guy on the subway no one wants to sit next to. Don't blow your first date because you smell like something that fell out of a dumpster. Get funky while busting a move, but don't actually be funky while doing it. How to Talk Like Grown-Ups Do No, this isn't about tossing out pickup lines at the local dive bar after you've had three beers too many. Well, it could be about that, but it's so much more. After burying your face in textbooks for four years, you may have forgotten to be around other human beings.