Graduation!

As is typical of many successful graduates, our graduation was going to mean changes. No more student poverty. No more living off student loans. A well deserved steady income. All the clichés. To properly start this blog of our experience seeking enlightening employment internationally (and the monetary reward we surely thought would be waiting) it would be good to begin with some basics.

If you are fortunate enough to have landed your dream job straight out of school, you can skip this part. For those who found themselves questioning both their initial employment (and income) level, you are not alone. We only discovered the book recently:

I Went to College for This?: How to Turn Your Entry Level Job Into a Career You Love by Amy Joyce.

At the very least it gives you the satisfaction of knowing that you are not alone. I recommend visiting your local library for a copy if you were even remotely near the dire financial circumstances that we were.

For the Canadians reading, post-graduation talk will no doubt lead one to discussions of the government run Canada Student Loans program. Say what you will about the program, but it does provide for many who could not otherwise to attend University in Canada. But they are terrible to pay back. I will not go into detail here, as there are other forums for such discussions, but I will give a few useful sites for those in need:

http://www.members.shaw.ca/frasie/bad.htm

(Again, at least you are not alone)

http://www.canadastudentdebt.ca/

(Independent advice for those in need)

http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/debtplanner/debtplanner.jsp

(Very useful tool to determine what extra payments will mean to any loans)

There are many sites that go into further detail on these issues, this is just a primer. A google search will surely lead you to more specific information. Any postings with additional issues or experiences are of course welcome.