In her book After College, Geneva alumna Erica Young Reitz writes, “But readiness [for after college] is not just about securing a job and apartment. Or a paycheck in hand. It’s about much more. It’s about preparing for a life of faithfulness in a complex world.”  

This quote sums up why we created an experience like Senior Launch, a one-day event that prepares seniors for the transition into life after college. Though students receive thorough preparation in their coursework for their careers after college, many colleges spend little time providing support for the transition into post-college life. But it is often the transitional pieces that make life hard in the first couple of years after college.  

Where will I live? How much money do I need to live? How do I make friends? These are the questions we would frequently hear from alumni in their first year out. To help answer these questions before they presented themselves, we developed Senior Launch to give seniors the space to start thinking through these questions before they leave Geneva and to help normalize the common roadblocks that present themselves after college.  

The event is designed to mimic a typical workday. It begins at 9:00 a.m. and runs through 5:00 p.m. and by the end of the day, students are typically exhausted. Though that’s partly intentional, we work to make the day interactive and cover topics such as: 

• Navigating transition 

• What to know about entering professional and graduate school life 

• Building and maintaining relationships 

• Understanding bills and budgeting 

We offer the one-day conference each January to students who plan to graduate within the next year. Offering the conference at the beginning of the spring semester allows us to capture seniors’ attention as they begin to feel graduation looming but also with enough time to pursue one-on-one help over their last semester around the topics we address during the conference. This model has proven strategic, and we have had many alumni come back to campus during their first year out and express how grateful they were to have had those conversations before they graduated as they felt like they had the tools to help them navigate their transition. 

This year’s Senior Launch conference will take place on Saturday, Jan. 17, and registration for the event will begin in December. If you have a son or daughter who is planning to graduate in the next year, encourage them to attend! 

By Krista Autrey, Director of Geneva’s Center for Calling & Career