The Turbulent Twenties - Generation Y and Post-College Resources

Are the Twenties a Time of Crisis?

Announcement:
I have started a new blog at that is focused on Personal and Career Development for Young Professionals. It can be found at www.MarcosSalazar.com. As opposed to straight out career blogs that cover resumes, the job search, or interviewing skills, I will taking a psychology approach to not only these parts of your career but also will be covering the personal, social, and workforce challenges that college graduates and young professionals are facing in the 21st century. As I did in The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide, I utilize a psychological approach to covering these topics and will be integrating important research within real life situations to provide practical advice for people's personal and professional development (if you have read The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide you know what I mean).

Some of the topics I will be covering are:

• learning how to find and follow what you love doing
• practical steps on how to get into Flow at work
• understanding the psychology of happiness and affective forecasting
• managing the tyranny of choice
• learning how to cultivate your emotional and cultural intelligence
• networking in the internet age
• learning how to brand yourself professionally
• discovering how to use blogging as a professional tool (it is the new resume of our generation)
• how to become more of an entrepreneur
• using social-networking for professional advancement
• getting over post-college depression
• helping to answer all those questions that we work through during our 20s and 30s such as: Who am I? Who do I want to become? Where am I going? What are my passions in life? Am I making the right decisions?

So I hope you take a look at the site, subscribe, and share it with friends.

Take care!

- Marcos Salazar
www.marcossalazar.com

____________________________

This is a question I have been asked quite often and over the past few years there's been talk about how today's postcollege transition will cause you to experience a "quarterlife crisis" during your twenties. Joining the ever-popular adolescent crisis, thirtysomething crisis, and mid-life crisis, if we were to follow this rationale by adding a quarterlife crisis to the list, it would mean our entire life is just one big crisis! More importantly, a crisis by definition is something that is abnormal. People are not supposed to live in crisis mode, but the fact is almost every twentysomething I have spoken to has struggled with adjusting to life after college. The truth is all these feelings of anxiety, stress, and confusion are normal and natural responses to such a major life change. So to call it a crisis is to completely misconstrue what is actually happening. Sure, it is a catchy term to use, but it is inaccurate and I think can potentially cause major harm by making people feel like they are abnormal for having such feelings. This then perpetuates all the negative feelings twentysomethings are feeling because they feel like they are the only ones feeling like this, which of course is exactly the opposite of what I want to do.

Smart Women Ain't Sexy?

Announcement:
I have started a new blog at that is focused on Personal and Career Development for Young Professionals. It can be found at www.MarcosSalazar.com. As opposed to straight out career blogs that cover resumes, the job search, or interviewing skills, I will taking a psychology approach to not only these parts of your career but also will be covering the personal, social, and workforce challenges that college graduates and young professionals are facing in the 21st century. As I did in The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide, I utilize a psychological approach to covering these topics and will be integrating important research within real life situations to provide practical advice for people's personal and professional development (if you have read The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide you know what I mean).

Some of the topics I will be covering are:

• learning how to find and follow what you love doing
• practical steps on how to get into Flow at work
• understanding the psychology of happiness and affective forecasting
• managing the tyranny of choice
• learning how to cultivate your emotional and cultural intelligence
• networking in the internet age
• learning how to brand yourself professionally
• discovering how to use blogging as a professional tool (it is the new resume of our generation)
• how to become more of an entrepreneur
• using social-networking for professional advancement
• getting over post-college depression
• helping to answer all those questions that we work through during our 20s and 30s such as: Who am I? Who do I want to become? Where am I going? What are my passions in life? Am I making the right decisions?

So I hope you take a look at the site, subscribe, and share it with friends.

Take care!

- Marcos Salazar
www.marcossalazar.com

____________________________

In a study that was conducted at the universities of Aberdeen, Bristol, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. Psychologists have found that for every 16-point raise in IQ men have a thirty-five percent increased chance of getting married. However, for women each 16-point increase in IQ actually decreases their chances of getting married by forty percent! That’s right. As more women attain higher levels of education (women earn 200,000 more BAs than men each year go) pursue a career, work in powerful jobs, become financially self-reliant, and create a better life for themselves, they are actually decreasing their chances of marriage!

What could possibly be causing this? I have spoken to many women about this and my friend attending business school summed it up pretty quickly: “When guys find out you, say, go to Harvard, they lose interested instantly.” Another friend told me that when she was out, her and her friend would tell guys they were paralegals instead of graduate students pursuing degrees in science. But these were beautiful women who were intelligent, driven, and extremely successful. Some of them were going to Ivy League schools, some had PhD’s, some were practicing law, while some were already doing medical rounds and surgery. How could guys not worship the ground these women walk on?

Well, the answer is pretty simple: men want to be the ones worshiped. Well, it is a little more complicated than that (as we will see in the next section) but one of the major reasons why young successful women are finding it so difficult hard to find good men is because they are not going to be with a man because he can “provide for them” or because he has simply has a penis. My friends and all the other successful, well educated young women out there are a new breed of females that the history of the world has never seen and as they rise in socioeconomic status, so do their standards and expectations for men. This is forcing all the guys out there to bring much more to the table to meet the desires of women.

Post-college Depression

Announcement:
This post has been moved to a new page on a new blog I have started that focuses on Personal and Career Development for Young Professionals. It can be found at www.MarcosSalazar.com.

As opposed to straight out career blogs that cover resumes, the job search, or interviewing skills, I will taking a psychology approach to not only these parts of your career but also will be covering the personal, social, and workforce challenges that college graduates and young professionals are facing in the 21st century. As I did in The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide, I utilize a psychological approach to covering these topics and will be integrating important research within real life situations to provide practical advice for people's personal and professional development (if you have read The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide you know what I mean).

Some of the topics I will be covering are:

• learning how to find and follow what you love doing
• practical steps on how to get into Flow at work
• understanding the psychology of happiness and affective forecasting
• managing the tyranny of choice
• learning how to cultivate your emotional and cultural intelligence
• networking in the internet age
• learning how to brand yourself professionally
• discovering how to use blogging as a professional tool (it is the new resume of our generation)
• how to become more of an entrepreneur
• using social-networking for professional advancement
• getting over post-college depression
• helping to answer all those questions that we work through during our 20s and 30s such as: Who am I? Who do I want to become? Where am I going? What are my passions in life? Am I making the right decisions?

So I hope you take a look at the site, subscribe, and share it with friends.

I have also created a series of more in-depth posts about post-college depression at MarcosSalazar.com. Here I will delving much deeper into the increasingly common problem of depression, anxiety, and stress emerging adults of Generation Y through a series of posts as well as show how it can affect your work and career. I want to raise awareness of this epidemic among millennials and let people know that they are not alone in facing this problem. I exposed this problem in the Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide where I provided the first comprehensive explanation of this common problem and here I will expand on my findings as well as provide ways that you can combat the post-college blues. So please visit MarcosSalazar.com for the latest information on this topic.

Take care!

- Marcos Salazar
www.marcossalazar.com

____________________________

In doing research for my book, I was so surprised by how many graduates told me that either they had become depressed or knew of fellow twentysomethings who had developed major depression. Along with depression, many spoke about feeling extremely nervous about how their life was unfolding because they did not know what the next step was and felt like they were simply wondering through their twenties. Because of nature of this transitional period, it is extremely common to struggle with an array of negative emotions that arise from all the challenges they face after college.

Many of the symptoms that twentysomethings said they experience after college are:

We're No Longer Living Like Chia Pets

Announcement:
I have started a new blog at that is focused on Personal and Career Development for Young Professionals. It can be found at www.MarcosSalazar.com. As opposed to straight out career blogs that cover resumes, the job search, or interviewing skills, I will taking a psychology approach to not only these parts of your career but also will be covering the personal, social, and workforce challenges that college graduates and young professionals are facing in the 21st century. As I did in The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide, I utilize a psychological approach to covering these topics and will be integrating important research within real life situations to provide practical advice for people's personal and professional development (if you have read The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide you know what I mean).

Some of the topics I will be covering are:

• learning how to find and follow what you love doing
• practical steps on how to get into Flow at work
• understanding the psychology of happiness and affective forecasting
• managing the tyranny of choice
• learning how to cultivate your emotional and cultural intelligence
• networking in the internet age
• learning how to brand yourself professionally
• discovering how to use blogging as a professional tool (it is the new resume of our generation)
• how to become more of an entrepreneur
• using social-networking for professional advancement
• getting over post-college depression
• helping to answer all those questions that we work through during our 20s and 30s such as: Who am I? Who do I want to become? Where am I going? What are my passions in life? Am I making the right decisions?

So I hope you take a look at the site, subscribe, and share it with friends.

Take care!

- Marcos Salazar
www.marcossalazar.com

____________________________

I was chatting with a friend at a bar a while ago and we started talking about how meeting people after college was so much different compared to our twenties. He told me, “I definitely think that it’s more difficult finding new friends now, compared to college. DC may not be as bad as other places, but after graduation it’s a much more diverse world than college was. It takes much more time and effort to find someone who’s on the same page as you, whereas in college you would find yourself in the same classes, or going to the same parties, or going to sporting events with people who had similar interests. There are bars and things like that that attract similar types of people, but it’s just not quite as conducive to meeting people as it was in college.”

If you’re a twentysomething, you know exactly what I’m talking about. After the endless opportunities to meet people in classes that changed each semester, in tons of organizations and clubs, or in the dining hall and dorms where you could talk for hours on end fades away after graduation, it can become damn hard to meet people you make a connection with. You know, this whole thing reminds me of me of a Chia Pet.

You’ve all seen the commercials—Cha, Cha, Cha, Chia!—and getting your Chia Pet to grow is pretty easy. All you have to do is get the right ingredients, mix them up, spread them over the surface of your favorite ceramic animal, add some nourishing water and sunlight, and watch it grow. Well, a similar thing happens during college, where you gather the proper students, mix them up, spread them around campus, add some nourishing classes, organizations, social events, and alcohol, let some time pass, and boom—watch all the friendships and casual relationships blossom. One of the major reasons why Chia Pets and campus relationships seem to bloom so effortlessly is because all the right ingredients necessary for their growth are put together by some external entity. Now, in the case of the Chia Pet, what would happen if you didn’t have the right ingredients? What if you didn’t mix the ingredients properly and put them in the right environment to grow but, rather, spread them around haphazardly? What if the proper nourishment was not given to them?

Introduction to the Book

Announcement:
I have started a new blog at that is focused on Personal and Career Development for Young Professionals. It can be found at www.MarcosSalazar.com. As opposed to straight out career blogs that cover resumes, the job search, or interviewing skills, I will taking a psychology approach to not only these parts of your career but also will be covering the personal, social, and workforce challenges that college graduates and young professionals are facing in the 21st century. As I did in The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide, I utilize a psychological approach to covering these topics and will be integrating important research within real life situations to provide practical advice for people's personal and professional development (if you have read The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide you know what I mean).

Some of the topics I will be covering are:

• learning how to find and follow what you love doing
• practical steps on how to get into Flow at work
• understanding the psychology of happiness and affective forecasting
• managing the tyranny of choice
• learning how to cultivate your emotional and cultural intelligence
• networking in the internet age
• learning how to brand yourself professionally
• discovering how to use blogging as a professional tool (it is the new resume of our generation)
• how to become more of an entrepreneur
• using social-networking for professional advancement
• getting over post-college depression
• helping to answer all those questions that we work through during our 20s and 30s such as: Who am I? Who do I want to become? Where am I going? What are my passions in life? Am I making the right decisions?

So I hope you take a look at the site, subscribe, and share it with friends.

Take care!

- Marcos Salazar
www.marcossalazar.com

____________________________

        It wasn’t too hard to see the frustration on her face when she told us, “There really isn’t a guide on how to live your life after college!” A group of friends and I were having some drinks on a nice summer day when Heather, a twenty-six-year-old friend of a friend, happened to join us. When she walked up to our table, I noticed that her demeanor didn’t fit too well with the beautiful weather that sunny day. You could clearly see that something heavy was weighing on her mind, and it looked like it had been there for quite some time. She grabbed a seat across from me and as we chatted about our lives and what had brought us to Washington, DC, I happened to mention that I was working on a book about the psychology of life after college. As I began telling her that the book was about the new challenges twentysomethings were facing as they made the transition from college to today’s working world, I could see I’d piqued her interest. What I soon realized was that by mentioning the topic of the book, I had turned on an emotional faucet within her. In an instant she quickly started pouring out all the personal struggles she had grappled with since leaving college.

        She began to talk about how lost she’d felt since graduation and how she didn’t really know what she wanted to do with her life. She spoke about hating her job and wanting to quit so she could move somewhere new. But almost in the same breath she mentioned that she wasn’t sure what she would do if she moved because she didn’t have much money and it was hard to find a good job with just a college degree. Her words sounded really familiar to me. I could easily empathize because, not only did I go through my own personal struggles after graduation, but I also had heard this kind of experience time and time again from almost every twentysomething I had encountered.

The Daily Grind

Announcement:
I have started a new blog at that is focused on Personal and Career Development for Young Professionals. It can be found at www.MarcosSalazar.com. As opposed to straight out career blogs that cover resumes, the job search, or interviewing skills, I will taking a psychology approach to not only these parts of your career but also will be covering the personal, social, and workforce challenges that college graduates and young professionals are facing in the 21st century. As I did in The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide, I utilize a psychological approach to covering these topics and will be integrating important research within real life situations to provide practical advice for people's personal and professional development (if you have read The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide you know what I mean).

Some of the topics I will be covering are:

• learning how to find and follow what you love doing
• practical steps on how to get into Flow at work
• understanding the psychology of happiness and affective forecasting
• managing the tyranny of choice
• learning how to cultivate your emotional and cultural intelligence
• networking in the internet age
• learning how to brand yourself professionally
• discovering how to use blogging as a professional tool (it is the new resume of our generation)
• how to become more of an entrepreneur
• using social-networking for professional advancement
• getting over post-college depression
• helping to answer all those questions that we work through during our 20s and 30s such as: Who am I? Who do I want to become? Where am I going? What are my passions in life? Am I making the right decisions?

So I hope you take a look at the site, subscribe, and share it with friends.

Take care!

- Marcos Salazar
www.marcossalazar.com

» Blog Posts

Coming Soon

» Web Articles and Resources

* Scenes from the Culture Clash
Great article about the challenges organizations are facing with today's generation of twentsomething workers.

* Are You a Procrastinator?
Could you be sabotaging your success?

Postcollege Depression

Announcement:
This post has been moved to a new page on a new blog I have started that focuses on Personal and Career Development for Young Professionals. It can be found at www.MarcosSalazar.com. 

As opposed to straight out career blogs that cover resumes, the job search, or interviewing skills, I will taking a psychology approach to not only these parts of your career but also will be covering the personal, social, and workforce challenges that college graduates and young professionals are facing in the 21st century. As I did in The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide, I utilize a psychological approach to covering these topics and will be integrating important research within real life situations to provide practical advice for people's personal and professional development (if you have read The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide you know what I mean).

Some of the topics I will be covering are:

• learning how to find and follow what you love doing
• practical steps on how to get into Flow at work
• understanding the psychology of happiness and affective forecasting
• managing the tyranny of choice
• learning how to cultivate your emotional and cultural intelligence
• networking in the internet age
• learning how to brand yourself professionally
• discovering how to use blogging as a professional tool (it is the new resume of our generation)
• how to become more of an entrepreneur
• using social-networking for professional advancement
• getting over post-college depression
• helping to answer all those questions that we work through during our 20s and 30s such as: Who am I? Who do I want to become? Where am I going? What are my passions in life? Am I making the right decisions?

So I hope you take a look at the site, subscribe, and share it with friends.

I have also created a series of more in-depth posts about post-college depression at MarcosSalazar.com. Here I will delving much deeper into the increasingly common problem of depression, anxiety, and stress emerging adults of Generation Y through a series of posts as well as show how it can affect your work and career. I want to raise awareness of this epidemic among millennials and let people know that they are not alone in facing this problem. I exposed this problem in the Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide where I provided the first comprehensive explanation of this common problem and here I will expand on my findings as well as provide ways that you can combat the post-college blues. So please visit MarcosSalazar.com for the latest information on this topic.

Take care!

- Marcos Salazar
www.marcossalazar.com

____________________________

» Blog Posts

* The Postcollege Blues

» Web Articles and Resources

* Test If You Have Depression
* What is Learned Helplessness?

Depression in your Twenties, Post-college depression, after college, depression

Dating, Sex, and Love

Announcement:
I have started a new blog at that is focused on Personal and Career Development for Young Professionals. It can be found at www.MarcosSalazar.com. As opposed to straight out career blogs that cover resumes, the job search, or interviewing skills, I will taking a psychology approach to not only these parts of your career but also will be covering the personal, social, and workforce challenges that college graduates and young professionals are facing in the 21st century. As I did in The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide, I utilize a psychological approach to covering these topics and will be integrating important research within real life situations to provide practical advice for people's personal and professional development (if you have read The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide you know what I mean).

Some of the topics I will be covering are:

• learning how to find and follow what you love doing
• practical steps on how to get into Flow at work
• understanding the psychology of happiness and affective forecasting
• managing the tyranny of choice
• learning how to cultivate your emotional and cultural intelligence
• networking in the internet age
• learning how to brand yourself professionally
• discovering how to use blogging as a professional tool (it is the new resume of our generation)
• how to become more of an entrepreneur
• using social-networking for professional advancement
• getting over post-college depression
• helping to answer all those questions that we work through during our 20s and 30s such as: Who am I? Who do I want to become? Where am I going? What are my passions in life? Am I making the right decisions?

So I hope you take a look at the site, subscribe, and share it with friends.

Take care!

- Marcos Salazar
www.marcossalazar.com

____________________________

» Blog Posts

Coming Soon

» Web Articles and Resources

* Why Can Love Make Us So Miserable?
Are your high expectations worth it?

* Tips for Office Dating
Should you do the deed under your cubicle?

* Online Dating Tips
I have had some great relationship from online dating and some pretty bad first dates. Here are some tips to ensure the former.

Dating, sex, love, twenties, after college, blues, real world, in twenties, late twenties, depression, friends,

Shelter

 

Announcement:
I have started a new blog at that is focused on Personal and Career Development for Young Professionals. It can be found at www.MarcosSalazar.com. As opposed to straight out career blogs that cover resumes, the job search, or interviewing skills, I will taking a psychology approach to not only these parts of your career but also will be covering the personal, social, and workforce challenges that college graduates and young professionals are facing in the 21st century. As I did in The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide, I utilize a psychological approach to covering these topics and will be integrating important research within real life situations to provide practical advice for people's personal and professional development (if you have read The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide you know what I mean).

Some of the topics I will be covering are:

• learning how to find and follow what you love doing
• practical steps on how to get into Flow at work
• understanding the psychology of happiness and affective forecasting
• managing the tyranny of choice
• learning how to cultivate your emotional and cultural intelligence
• networking in the internet age
• learning how to brand yourself professionally
• discovering how to use blogging as a professional tool (it is the new resume of our generation)
• how to become more of an entrepreneur
• using social-networking for professional advancement
• getting over post-college depression
• helping to answer all those questions that we work through during our 20s and 30s such as: Who am I? Who do I want to become? Where am I going? What are my passions in life? Am I making the right decisions?

So I hope you take a look at the site, subscribe, and share it with friends.

Take care!

- Marcos Salazar
www.marcossalazar.com

____________________________

» Blog Posts

Coming Soon

» Web Articles and Resources

No Money, Mo Problems

 

Announcement:
I have started a new blog at that is focused on Personal and Career Development for Young Professionals. It can be found at www.MarcosSalazar.com. As opposed to straight out career blogs that cover resumes, the job search, or interviewing skills, I will taking a psychology approach to not only these parts of your career but also will be covering the personal, social, and workforce challenges that college graduates and young professionals are facing in the 21st century. As I did in The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide, I utilize a psychological approach to covering these topics and will be integrating important research within real life situations to provide practical advice for people's personal and professional development (if you have read The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide you know what I mean).

Some of the topics I will be covering are:

• learning how to find and follow what you love doing
• practical steps on how to get into Flow at work
• understanding the psychology of happiness and affective forecasting
• managing the tyranny of choice
• learning how to cultivate your emotional and cultural intelligence
• networking in the internet age
• learning how to brand yourself professionally
• discovering how to use blogging as a professional tool (it is the new resume of our generation)
• how to become more of an entrepreneur
• using social-networking for professional advancement
• getting over post-college depression
• helping to answer all those questions that we work through during our 20s and 30s such as: Who am I? Who do I want to become? Where am I going? What are my passions in life? Am I making the right decisions?

So I hope you take a look at the site, subscribe, and share it with friends.

Take care!

- Marcos Salazar
www.marcossalazar.com

________________

» Blog Posts

Coming Soon

» Web Articles and Resources

* Welcome to the Rat Race
Although he's referring to the class of 2005, it's still a great article

* Manage Your Debt Now!
Great list of articles on everything you want to know about debt

* 401K FAQ
Important things you should know about investing in a 401k

* What is a Roth IRA?
Did you know you can use it to buy your first home?

* Thinking Of Buying Your First Home?
Yes, most of us are not even close to buying a place in our twenties, but you might as well know what to expect when the day comes when you have to move out of the guest bedroom in your parent's house.