I'm so confused about transitions into life's different stages..

Of course you're confused. Nobody can see the future. So stop trying.
Money or lack of it will help make all these decisions easy. If you've got it you won't have to live with your parents. How much you've got or how much you can save will depend on whether or not you rent or buy. Life is a series of steps, most of them you wont plan, they just happen. Getting married means, or at least should mean, that you have a partner and you will decide together what step/s to take next.

Plus, these days, a lot of college students don't stop at just four years. It depends on your career path, but a doctor or a lawyer has more education, as do a lot of other fields. Furthermore, technology is continually changing. The Internet did not exist when I graduated in 1979, and computers were large. My jobs for the past 20 years did not exist when I got out of High School.

In my day, girls were sent to college to be either a teacher or a nurse. Some were sent there to get a husband and were told to study in the medical library to find a doctor.

No more!! I am envious about all the options you will have.

Concentrate on your studies. Have fun. Your love life will work itself out but you need that education to ensure the well-beiing of your future, as an independent woman. Good luck!!

I am a newly graduate student.From my graduation time, it is almost 2 months. actually I had to confine that I really miss my student life. At that time, all I have to do is study and there is not any other things to trouble.

But now I had to, I had to think about my career, my future life. So do not feel confused, just enjoy your life as a student and have much fun as much as possible. By the way, try to find a person you love,haha.

That's because every single day is a transition.

You don't go through something, then arrive. You're always traveling.

I did a lab internship in city a hundred miles from my parents' home. It was a good break in that I'd never lived away. Shared a cottage with a friend, but she left because she got terrible asthma from the coastal fog, which left me paying the whole rent on my meager stipend, very low money even for so long ago. So I had to make ends meet when grocery shopping, and so on. After that I went back to my parents' house, and they were having hard times in their lives too. They didn't want me to leave as it was quite a silent house (years of grudges between them).

I got a great job and eventually had enough money to buy a car and get my own apartment, which I loved having. I had a healthy love life but didn't meet my to-be husband until I was thirty four. That was fine with me, I was glad I didn't marry those others. We bought a small house in a run down area of Los Angeles.

That is now one of the most chic areas of town, and land prices are high. The rest of life happened similarly - you deal with what is going on at the time, even if you have great ideas of who you want to be, and what you want to do. Among other things, I totally changed careers when I was forty, which meant four more years of school.

Enjoy the ride, live each day. Look around you, enjoy the people and the places.

Oops, I didn't see this was an oldish thread.

Just like me....oldish.

Well, I'm olderish.