5 Differences Between College Life and Corporate Life

The 2 most important phase in life starts with the same letter “C” but both the C’s are poles apart. You will see the difference in these two C’s.

We can take them as two different parts of our life. After your school, college life is like a dream come true part as you anticipate lot of freedom in the college. On the contrary you feel the pressure of responsibility when end your college days and enter in a corporate life. The transit from campus to corporate has few advantages and few disadvantages. People moving out from campus and entering a corporate need to do a lot of planning and behave more responsibly. Both of these phases create a lot of excitement. Campus life is very lively with lot of memories and fun .On the contrary when you enter a corporate you will be engaged only with your work for making your life better and easy life. This phase is an important transition in life and it needs to be handled efficiently. Being funny is called smartness in college but being funny in corporate is like carrying senseless humor along with you. Meeting your friends after a day or two seems like a year in college but corporate life creates years of gap between you you’re your friends. This transit changes your world in a different color.

Only once you cross this transit you will learn to embrace corporate life and to be able to carry the burden on your shoulders to survive.

Some differences at the crossroads are listed here:

1. Life style:

Young adults seem to believe that college life is filled with parties and typically a laid-back lifestyle. They usually love dressing up themselves in cool and following up the new trends and styles. Whereas in the corporate sector the candidate should be a social expert in dressing. He should be dressing himself only in formals or business casuals. He is mostly engrossed in daily routine jobs, in terms of achieving something in life .It sounds good but running into same track again n again sounds so boring and messed up thought. These two life styles bring changes in many sets of our life.

2. Attitude:

Having the right attitude makes you successful everywhere. Students do what they like and that creates a positive attitude in them. If there are pushed towards something which they aren’t comfortable it can lead them to have a negative attitude. Also in the college, having an attitude makes you look cool and smart .Campus life is open enough for every student to carry their own sets of attitude along with them.

Corporate life is something where you sing up a bond stating that “Yes, I will carry a positive attitude along with team spirit and be careful with my words, ideas and thoughts” .The transit of this changes the attitude from a student to an employee such as he/she must be working only for the company and be engaged in financially gain activities. So I would like to advice that plan your transit in such a way that your attitude is acceptable to others and would help you to succeed in both the life. In a college life, having a straight attitude is acceptable if you doing good in your field, but in a corporate life, an accommodating attitude is more desirable.

3. Schedule:

Schedule of college life depends on our mood and the state of mind planned in the morning . However, a corporate life schedule is simple and same every day. Studens gets a chance to plan and change them time by time in a day, and a employee is all ready told what to do n what not to do in a day and he/she must be working on that. College life is making up new friends and corporate is about seeing only the red horned boss every day.

4. Vacations:

In 365 days of a year, more than 100 days are vacation days for a student. However in a corporate life there are approximately 15 to 20 days of leave and another of sick leave of 5-6 days. A student can plan his vacations based on the examination and student’s life is not so strict to have a break for fun. But a corporate worker must plan his vacations according to the project schedule and the leave policy granted by his company.

5. Spending nature:

When you are a student, your spending nature depends on your family background and the kind of friend’s circle you hang around. You do not plan for the future as your Parents are like your ATM. You can always ask them whenever required. You may have to temporarily plan for funds when you are going out for an excursion or when you are buying gift for your friend.

As soon as you enter a corporate life, you will have to plan for everything. Your spending nature will depend on your package. If you are at a high package and you have a decent disposable income in your hand, you will tend to wander away and become spendthrift. If you are at an average package, you will be more careful in spending as you might feel comfortable in taking money from your parents. However, in both the above cases you will plan your expenses as you will have bills to pay. Your salary will be credited only at the month end but your last date of bill payment will be scattered all over your calendar. Apart from that, you will have to plan for the investment as you will need to submit investment proof at the end of the financial year. If you had taken an education loan earlier, you would also need to plan to repay it. Due to all of the above reasons, your spending nature will change drastically.

Read: 7 Reasons for Choosing a Startup Over a Corporate to Work for

As a student, you would have never thought before spending. Now you will be thinking every time before spending.

To Summarize, I would say, You need to stop and think at the Crossroad of College and Corporate life and plan a smooth transition.