When I asked to write this column, I wondered, "Will I be that alum? That alum who just won't leave?" But a friend's counsel buzzed in my brain, and I couldn't let go of it. Last summer, Josh Peck '02 told me what he wished he had been advised before leaving Brandeis. To paraphrase liberally, your first year out would be hell. Graduating means leaving your friends, rethinking your relationships, most likely letting go of your utter financial dependence on your parents, moving, starting at the bottom.

So, as a one-year alumna, I asked my peers, "What was the one thing you wish you had been told before graduating?" I will spare you several witty remarks about winning Powerball and just say that I did get some sage bits worth passing on. Here are some points from those who took my utterly unscientific survey seriously, or who simply did not want to be shunned come their birthdays:

l From an '03 Brandeis grad, who is working as a paralegal in New York City: "Everyday life is much more draining than it was before, so much so that I long for the opportunity to study for five or six hours a day because that seems like nothing compared to what I'm doing now."

l An '03 McGill University grad serving in AmeriCorps and hoping to enter the Peace Corps chimes in: "Everything is so freakin' expensive."

l And a brighter note from an '03 alumna attending medical school at Emory University: "Ladies, if you have had problems with the boys of Brandeis, you are not doomed for life." Phew.

Several graduates remarked how difficult it was to make friends outside of an academic setting. Daniel Paress, an '03 alumnus of Syracuse University, moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in television.

"Living at home, I couldn't get motivated to do any work or even find work. There were too many distractions and I was too comfortable living there that nothing was getting done," he said. So moving was a must-do, although he found that "not living with thousands of people my age is tough. Meeting people is tough. Meeting people my age is near impossible."

It can be tempting to make post-graduate life a carbon copy of one's Brandeis years, but that means not moving on. An '02 alumna, now getting her Ph.D. in the social sciences, warned not only of the horror that is Bell Canada, but also implored would-be alums to "very consciously work to move on from the undergrad experience."

"I don't think that people who are continuously talking about undergrad are happy, well-adjusted people," she said. "I think there is a difference between a healthy interest in your former institution (like, is Prof. X still there? Is the student center still green? Remember that one Mod party where Michaela got drunk?) and a wallowing in years past."

This wallowing was precisely what I feared as I cried off my mascara at graduation. I was moving to Washington, D.C., where I knew hardly anyone, and with a sort-of job that began at 6 a.m. and involved writing about technology legislation. This assignment was a far cry from my usual "our right to choose is being further imperiled" columns and certainly a jarring departure from Brandeis where I felt respected, needed and known.

(As for the crying, I have been told that I am too emotional. But I say, if I saw the world-its poverty, its vastness, its random kindnesses-and felt nothing, then what would that make me? I am a believer in emotions-screw those who would tell me I am "too much" of anything.)

But, alas, it was a job, and jobs are hard to find.

"Bachelor's degree positions are being filled by Ph.D.'s.," said one '03 alumnus from Southern California who plans to attend medical school. "Companies are looking for people who are ready to work for the rest of their lives, rather than for a year or so."

Here came the biggest challenge: A couple months after arriving in Washington, I found full-time work in my field as a "cub" editor. I am the smallest of small fish. Not only that, but I have come to understand that my small-fish status is just how it should be.

I know zilch. I now work for a publication that covers Congress, and so far I know next to zilch about the budget process or the majority leader in 1988 or why Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., became such a nutcase. And because I know zilch, I have to watch, learn and do work that sometimes requires little brain activity. That's the way it is, and I have learned that I should make the best of it.

For so-called student leaders, starting at the bottom post-Brandeis means retaining lessons learned while realizing that you might not be the top dog again until, say, 2030. And that can be quite a challenge, given that Brandeis teaches leadership and, by emphasizing the liberal arts over a more "real life" curriculum, forms minds highly capable of critical thought. The trade-off is that Brandeis provides students with very few pragmatic skills; you can read Daniel Boorstin and Marshall McLuhan until your eyes fall out, but nothing save experience can teach journalism or any other profession.

No amount of scholarship would have spared me the Monday last fall that I accidentally sent Capitol Hill staffers to events not scheduled until Tuesday; preventing a second cut-and-paste nightmare and keeping my job were the ultimate lesson in quality control.

Similarly, no amount of time in a classroom could have taught me how to get a press office-say that of Tecate beer, whose recent "Finally, a cold Latina" ad campaign elicited outrage from members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus-to return my call. Only experience will teach me how to be taken seriously and how to admit defeat.

Being a 22-year-old journalist, or a 22-year-old anything, means admitting that you have a lot to learn and then getting to it-basically, it means you're still in school, only you're not paying tuition and you have to dress nicer.

But watch out come 2030.