When your son or daughter graduates from college, will she be prepared for the real world outside her dorm walls? ChaChanna Simpson comes to the rescue with her new book, Life After College: What Your Parents and Professors Never Taught You, available from Booklocker.
We interviewed ChaChanna to find out more about her new book and why she felt there was a need to help college graduates in their transition stage into the real world of paying bills and learning how to handle their own finances.
Q: Thank you for this interview, ChaChanna. Can you tell us all about your new book?
A: Thank you for having me.
Life After College walks college grads through the first few steps after college and tackles issues, such as how to deal with moving back home, navigating through a difficult job search, managing finances, getting your first apartment, and more. I’ve also included stories from other college grads who’ve been there and are surviving.
The book is really about preparing college grads on how to enter the real world. College prepares you to be proficient in your major but not much else. And parents and other adults take the information that they know for granted and believe everyone knows certain things, so they don’t think to pass on what they learned.
Q: In what ways can your book help the college graduate?
A: When you graduate college, you have the tools to perform the major you have studied for four years. What you are not ready for is how to prepare for moving back home, presenting yourself in an interview, handling annoying co-workers, getting your first place, or what FICO is. My book touches on all those topics and more. My book is really about presenting and assisting in situations that a college student hasn’t encountered yet.
Q: You have a website called Twentity, which is a place for twentysomethings to go to learn how to enter the real world as well. Can you tell us more about it?
A: Sure, I started Twentity.com four years ago. Twentity.com, pronounced twent-eh-tee, addresses the important questions and concerns of recent college grads on how to make the transition from college life into the real world. It offers answers to questions such as: how to find an apartment, what life insurance is and why twentysomethings need it now, how to meet people after college, and many more questions. Readers are able to apply what they read directly and immediately to their own lives.
