The Graduate's Almanac

When you're in school, you learn how to draw demand curves, write about American politics, and diagram carbon atoms. Although these topics are important, they're not very helpful when you need to find an apartment, pick health insurance, or fill out your taxes. Who explains life after school?

Cap & Compass has created The Graduate's Almanac, a follow-up to our previous book, life after school. explained. You can read from cover to cover or turn to the appropriate topic as you reach your first day on the job, business dinner, tax season, or any other milestone.

This book was written with recent graduates in mind, but the topics are useful for anyone who eats, spends money, pays taxes, or works for a living.

We do not intend for this book to be a substitute for the advice of professional accountants, financial advisors, apartment brokers, and so on. Rather, it is designed to help you get a basic understanding of the concepts and lingo. This foundation will help you to have meaningful conversations with professionals in order to make the best decisions for you. So next time your HR manager wants to talk to you about your 401(k) or HMO, you'll have the secret decoder.

Throughout the book, you will see Alex, a new graduate. Alex is a fictional character, the subject of all of our anecdotes, and a front for all of our embarrassing stories. This book was compiled from the experiences of many recent graduates-our friends, our coworkers, our previous readers-plus professionals from many fields.

We hope you enjoy!