- Your Salary = Your take home pay…
It’s not as much as you think! Think taxes and 401k’s. You’ll need to make sure you know exactly what your take home pay is before renting that really awesome – and expensive – apartment, or before buying a shiny new vehicle. In fact, it is a general rule of thumb that you shouldn’t spend more than 30% of your income after taxes on rent. Make sure to do some research and make sure you know exactly how much money you’re taking home before making any big purchases.
- Everything you learned in school will be helpful…
The exact formula and process involved in order to calculate a correlation between two variables or the specific way a neuron fires may not help you during your everyday work day. You will have to learn many new things during your career that your education may not have prepared you for! Starting a career can be a bit daunting, but if you make sure to keep an open mind and maintain a willingness to learn, you will learn to navigate the working world.
- Your Professors were always right…
Gina has had mentees who had professors telling them that compensation stacks up with more education, like getting an MBA automatically adds another $50,000 to your salary. This is simply not true, and every person is a different case entirely.
- People will hold your hand along the way…
Do not expect your coworkers or boss to coddle you or give you special treatment. You will need to learn from your own mistakes, keep your head up when you feel discouraged, and possess enough motivation to push through and problem solve on your own. Having a mentor (or two) to look up to for advice can be very helpful!
- You’re going straight into a management position…
A lot of Millennials at university or new graduates think that they will be able to enter the working world and immediately fill a management role. This is a very rare occurrence. Even if you are a graduate student, you most likely will not enter a management position without some sort of experience. Keep in mind that you will most likely need to work your way up and gain experience to make you qualified for management roles in your future.
Have any other misconceptions you’ve encountered? Let us know on Twitter or Facebook!
