My vision, my reality
When you started college, you probably had a vision of how the future would play out: four years of college, a fabulous graduation celebration, two weeks to regroup, and then you'd move into a great new apartment and start your first job
.
At least that was my vision.
For those of you who are graduating this spring, if you have a similar vision, don't be alarmed if it doesn't play out just that way. It didn't for me.
As I've shared, I moved to Colorado shortly after my college graduation and planned to live with my sister temporarily while I looked for a job. It was May. I figured within a couple months, I'd land something and be ready to move into my own place shortly after that.
Well, all summer long I kept shooting out resumes and working part time at JCPenney®
. I went to a few interviews each month, but nothing panned out—except an offer to enter a management training program at a record store in Boulder
. For about 10 minutes I was tempted to take it—just to have a "real" job. But I wanted to be a writer, not a retail manager, so I hung in there.
Summer stretched into autumn, and my frustration was building. All my friends back home had landed their first jobs. What was I doing wrong?
With my student loan grace period
about to end, I was starting to get worried about money, so I picked up a second job as a temp. Now I was doing data entry by day (big yawn) and selling reasonably-priced junior clothing by night (bigger yawn). This wasn't good—I was getting farther away from my vision, not closer!
By January, I figured enough was enough. I could be a temp anywhere—why not move back closer to my friends and hopefully into a kinder job market?
It was a smart decision. A full nine months after I graduated from college (and three weeks after moving back home), I finally landed a job in my field and moved into my own apartment. It took longer than I intended, but I was finally on my way.



Comments
Caroline i think you are smart
Posted by: Anonymous | May 10, 2007 04:57 PM
#1:Wells Fargo did a great job informing me that you can't defer a student loan from a private lender.
#2: $8.00 prossessing fee to make a payment the easy way. Or you could buy checks just to make one payment a month.
#3: Will it take a substansial loss of business created by a highly motivated individual to create "positive" change within your grand money making ring.
#4 Wait...Life isn't fair is it? It must be that line of reasoning that separates Wells Fargo from the best of the lenders in the world.
Posted by: Dustin | May 14, 2007 01:32 PM
Hi Dustin – it sounds like you’ve had a bad experience and I'm sorry to hear that. While I don’t know all the specifics of your situation, maybe I can help to clear things up a bit. True, you can’t “defer” a private student loan. Deferment is an option that’s specific to federal loans. With a private loan, you could possibly be granted a forbearance, which allows you to temporarily postpone payments, but that’s done at the discretion of the lender who holds your private loans.
It sounds like you might have done a check over the phone to make your student loan payment, which does involve a fee. However, we do offer other payment options that are free – such as making your payments online. You could also make your payments through automatic withdrawal from your checking or savings account, and your account doesn’t have to be with Wells Fargo to do this.
I hope this information helps. Please feel free to contact us via email if you have more questions.
Posted by: Caroline Hanson | May 15, 2007 11:14 AM