When I graduated college a year ago in June of 2018, I really looked forward to the work life and adulting. Back in October of 2017, I had accepted a full-time offer for a software development engineer position in unsurprisingly, the Silicon Valley. This meant that I’d be moving back to the west coast (best coast!) after four years in Boston, MA. The thought of working full-time and adulting brought an excitement similar to how I felt about moving to Boston for college. I was eager to experience a different kind of independence as well as start a new chapter of my life.
‘Different’ right about sums up work life vs student life. One of the biggest changes I felt once I started working was how much more responsibility you have as a team member working on a product with customers. As a student, what I did only affected my grades, my learning, my sleep… but now what I do affects not only myself, but also the rest of my team, the product, and customers. In a way it’s more exciting, but when you also cook regularly, spend half the weekend running errands/doing chores, are pretty involved in church activities, and still want to spend time socializing with friends, it can get quite exhausting. There were some weeks when I felt overwhelmed with all the responsibilities and decided to give myself a small break in the form of working from home, eating out, or giving myself relaxing alone time.
Another aspect of work life that I found pretty different from student life was how busy I was. Instead of having regular homework to do, I was working on projects – some back to back, some overlapping. This meant that I was relatively chill some weeks and was crazy busy during others. Sometimes, this means I would get a little sleepy at work when things were too chill and when I was super busy, I would find myself continuing to work in the evening. But regardless of how busy I was, whenever I completed a big task, I would feel a big sense of accomplishment.
As a positive side effect of not having regular homework, I’ve been able to spend more dedicated time to hobbies – both rediscovered and new. I play the guitar and sing more often now, and I’ve started to get back into reading leisurely after a super long hiatus. I’ve also started drawing portrait pencil sketches, and I’ve developed an appreciation for comedy and started following some comedians. Because many of the friends I’ve made since I moved to the Bay Area enjoy tabletop games, I’ve also gotten into playing various tabletop games like 7 Wonders, Five Crowns, and Dixit. My involvement in some of my hobbies during college like dance and basketball has for the most part been reduced to none partly because they require more effort to coordinate with others, can get a little costly, and admittedly, are more physically demanding.
I find it interesting how despite my pursuing mostly solo hobbies since I started working, I have become more of an extravert (according to personality tests and comments from those around me). I suspect my increased extraversion developed from a desire to maintain good relationships and be hospitable, an eagerness to learn and improve, and a curiosity for what’s happening around me.
There are only two months left until my one year anniversary working as a software development engineer at Apple, and there are a lot of soft and hard skills I’ve learned both in my professional and personal life. Throughout these past couple of months, I’ve really had to rely on God for guidance and reassurance, and I’m thankful that I’ve been able to experience many blessings since I embarked on this exciting chapter of life.
From the muse in me,
~ marG






































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