Column – Adventures with Abby: “Adulting” requires more than education

Our institutions of higher learning pack hundreds or thousands of young adults into the same space, condensing a diverse cross-section of humanity into one spot. Everyone comes from different backgrounds, different skill sets and different styles of child-rearing.

As a result, college students exemplify some of the oddest combinations of traits and habits known to humankind.

In few other settings can you find someone who, for example, could enumerate the finer points of biochemistry and still not know how to fry an egg. 

The remarkable thing about college is that this is perfectly fine. Unless you live off-campus, someone else does the cooking, most of the cleaning and more. Even off-campus students have on-campus dining options.

However, after college, that is no longer the case. College students should know at least a handful of basic life skills before they graduate and enter the real world. Here is what college students should know before walking across the stage to graduate: 

1. Basic cooking

This one seems like a no-brainer to me, so I am constantly surprised by the number of my peers who don’t know how to cook. 

Knowing how to cook is going to save you a lot of money and put a lot of variety in your diet. Buying your own ingredients and cooking your own meals is much cheaper than purchasing a meal cooked by someone else, simply because you’re not paying someone for the labor to cook or serve it. 

Cooking your own meals gives you control of what goes in them. If you have a food allergy or other specific dietary needs, you don’t have to worry about what’s going in the meal  since you’re the one putting it together. 

Plus, you won’t always be in a situation where you can go two blocks away and buy a meal. Knowing how to cook could keep you from going hungry.

2.Simple sewing

Have you ever had a button come off of your favorite article of clothing or accidentally ripped your jeans? Maybe you brought the piece of clothing to your one friend who knows how to sew. But once you graduate, it is harder to find someone to repair your clothes in an emergency, and if you do, they probably need compensation. 

A simple pocket sewing kit only costs a few dollars. And YouTube provides instruction videos on almost every topic imaginable. 

3. Money handling

Most college students should probably have a working knowledge of how to pay bills, do their own taxes and implement a budget before flipping the tassel. Once every penny doesn’t have to go toward school or necessities, it is important to have a plan. Dave Ramsey has plenty to say about creating a good budget to save money for your future, repay debt and keep your spending within your income.

After all, wouldn’t you like to use your money wisely after earning it in the job you worked so hard for?

4.Car maintenance 

What does it mean when your car makes a thunka-thunka-thunka noise? How about when it sounds like the engine is trying to escape from under the hood?

Knowing basic car maintenance could be helpful when taking your car to the garage so that you know you’re not being conned. At the very least it is important to know how to change your own tire so you’re not stranded on the side of the road. 

5. Job searching

This one is truly self-evident. Getting a job is the whole point of why you and I came to college in the first place. 

Between Career Week and the Career Center, students have plenty of resources to make excellent cover letters and résumés and gain invaluable job application and interview skills. 

College gives you an education, a degree and plenty of crazy experiences along the way, but it would be foolish for us not to prepare for other aspects of adult life. These five basic life skills will go a long way toward smoothing our transitions into adulthood. 

Bowman is the opinion editor. Follow her on Twitter.