Lionel Barzon III's Professional Blog

Do you remember what it was like making the transition from high school to college? If you, like about 40% of public and 60% of private school students, chose to disembark from the comfort and freedom of your parent’s room and live on campus, you  certainly  remember. Meals were no longer cooked for you around dinner time most every night. The food was probably less healthy, tasted worse, and the money came out of your pocket (either directly if you paid your own way, or indirectly via loans). You were also, of course, paying for your room–and it was probably smaller and more cramped than the one at Mom & Dad’s place. But, over time, you got accustomed to it. And then, at the end of your four (or five, or six…) years at college, things made a  drastic  switch once again. Suddenly, you’ve found yourself with a more well-paying job and a little bit more money on your hands. So what’s your first course of action when you get that first paycheck at your new office...

This post was originally featured on LionelBarzon.net . With the holiday season in the rearview mirror, college students like myself are preparing to make the trek back to school where, inevitably, we’ll be asked the same question some 30 to 40 times. “How was your break–did you do anything fun?” To some, the holiday break was just that–a break. Time to relax, cast aside responsibilities and binge watch Netflix on their parents’ couch, only standing to lumber to the fridge for another plate of Christmas leftovers. For these people, it’s satisfying to answer “it was good, uhh, I didn’t really do too much.” But for those of us who were fortunate enough to turn winter break into a vacation, that same “it was good, uhh, I didn’t really do too much,” answer is a wake up call that should signal that your vacation might have gone to waste. Far too often, that’s exactly the case. People my age are complacent to take a vacation and get little done. Fly to the Caribbean, for instance,...

This post was originally featured on Lionel Barzon III 's blog. It’s an unfortunate fact of life that change can, and often does, affect our life quite a bit. Unexpected large-scale change can derail your entire way of living, of course. But even change that we all see coming, change that we can anticipate, plan for and even look forward to, can have a profound impact on our lives, making us realize we may not have been as prepared as we thought we were. I’ve already written about  things you may be doing wrong in college  simply due to the fact that, when you get to college you’ve (probably) never been there before. So what about after college? What about the time when graduation is in the recent past, the celebrations have died down and you’re left unemployed, burdened with student debt and wholly unprepared for life as an adult? Well, I’ve got a few tips to help you out there as well. Let me stop you before you get too far ahead of yourself–I already know what you’...

College is a time that, for a majority of those who attend, is the first chance at nearly total freedom. College students are given the opportunity to do as they please–to take the classes they want, choose their own path and carve it through only their own will. And sometimes, this huge dose of freedom is a little too much for some of us–we make mistakes and forget why we're really in college: to broaden our educational horizons and take in everything that we can from the experience. Being that this is more than likely the first time you’re out making decisions on your own on a consistent basis, you’re bound to encounter twists and turns that leave you pulling out your cellphone to dial mom or dad. However not all problems you find yourself falling into will be able to be solved by asking your parents–in fact, most of these decisions could, and should fall squarely on your shoulders. Here are a few things that, if you’re in college, you might be doing wrong right now. 1...

College is a time that, for a majority of those who attend, is the first chance at nearly total freedom. College students are given the opportunity to do as they please–to take the classes they want, choose their own path and carve it through only their own will. And sometimes, this huge dose of freedom is a little too much for some of us–we make mistakes and forget why we're really in college: to broaden our educational horizons and take in everything that we can from the experience. Being that this is more than likely the first time you’re out making decisions on your own on a consistent basis, you’re bound to encounter twists and turns that leave you pulling out your cellphone to dial mom or dad. However not all problems you find yourself falling into will be able to be solved by asking your parents–in fact, most of these decisions could, and should fall squarely on your shoulders. Here are a few things that, if you’re in college, you might be doing wrong right now. 1...

College is a time that, for a majority of those who attend, is the first chance at nearly total freedom. College students are given the opportunity to do as they please–to take the classes they want, choose their own path and carve it through only their own will. And sometimes, this huge dose of freedom is a little too much for some of us–we make mistakes and forget why we're really in college: to broaden our educational horizons and take in everything that we can from the experience. Being that this is more than likely the first time you’re out making decisions on your own on a consistent basis, you’re bound to encounter twists and turns that leave you pulling out your cellphone to dial mom or dad. However not all problems you find yourself falling into will be able to be solved by asking your parents–in fact, most of these decisions could, and should fall squarely on your shoulders. Here are a few things that, if you’re in college, you might be doing wrong right now. 1...