My friend Josh Kimbrell graduated from Santa Clara University (pictured above) in Northern California in June of 2007 with a BS in Civil Engineering. He will be hitting his year mark in the real world soon working as an engineer. But immediately after graduating, Kimbrell traveled through Europe with his girlfriend and stayed in Greece to do volunteer work for two months.

Kimbrell had a job lined up to start late September in Burlingame, California—right outside of San Fransisco. It wasn’t too far from where his college was located and during his four years he grew to love the area and decided to call it home.

Like me, Kimbrell is a transplant from Hawaii. You’d be surprised to see how many people from Hawaii decide to pack up and move far from home– but that’s for another post.

“Josh has always been pretty determined,” said his friend Drew Des Jarlais, 23, from Hawaii.

I’ve known Josh for a long time and it didn’t surprise me when he graduated in four years and landed a job fast.”

Kimbrell has been working for a little more than six months now and is pretty happy with his current job.

“I’m glad to be out of school,” said Kimbrell, “Life, for me, is actually easier than college—not having homework is so much better. “

Kimbrell isn’t saying post college life is a piece of cake, though.

“I also like working rather than college because work challenges me. I actually feel like I am getting something done rather than given a fake scenario or problem to solve.”

Kimbrell went to career fairs with 20 to 30 resumes on hand and gave them out to prospective companies.

(pictured: Me and Josh Kimbrell)

“It was good networking and gave me a lot of options to look at,” said Kimbrell.

Kimbrell also emphasized the use of an internship, like yours truly.

“My advice would be to try out a lot of internships and see what you like and don’t like. Nothing bad can come from experience. You don’t want to be in the dark about what you’re eventually going to do,” said Kimbrell. He did an internship in Hawaii over the summer.

“You learn what you want to focus on, how to work hard and gain discipline from sitting for long periods on time,” said Kimbrell.

Gaining experience from internships is important—I can’t stress that enough! Kimbrell agreed.

“I heard about it through word of mouth, I called (he was proactive) and the applied, said Kimbrell.”

As for time management, Kimbrell explained that he likes getting out at five o’clock everyday. And even though he wasn’t used to getting up early he actually embraced it.

“I like waking up early because it makes me feel like I haven’t wasted my day,” Kimbrell said.

Overall, Kimbrell’s transition from student to employee was a success. He was proactive and set out to get what he wanted. He didn’t wait for anything to fall into his lap and found a career he’s truly happy with.