College is security. You go to class, you come home and, since you go to the University of Wisconsin, you drink yourself stupid four nights a week.

Then, after four years of indulgence, periodically punctuated by moments of sobriety and abstinence in order to study for a midterm, reality inevitably forces your hedonistic brain to come to its senses and you think, "Man, I have to get a job and shit."

Sure, you can temporarily drown that voice out with copious amounts of alcohol and a cornucopia of controlled substances, but eventually the forces that be will bombard you with images of tax returns, business-casual dress codes and 401Ks. The safety net that is college disappears, and you're left walking the tightrope with nothing below you but unforgiving concrete. Many will undergo stunning transformations and become real working stiffs.

There is a clan of kids, real go-getters, who, four months before graduation, have already landed jobs with prestigious accounting firms or will soon be designing bridges as highly sought-after engineers. These ambitious, young, urban professionals can be spotted easily on campus, as they seemingly talk nonstop about how they are going to invest half of their $80,000 salary in the stock market and spend the other half on a Bimmer. After all, money buys happiness, right?

Needless to say, these people must be avoided at all costs.

Another group exists, hailing primarily from the political science and philosophy departments, headed for graduate or law school. These are the intellectual elites, who consider the rest of us barbaric troglodytes for failing to obtain a masters degree. "By not continuing your education," they say, "you are just capitulating to the fascist regime that affluent white males have erected to blind the working man."

But the graduates who are truly happy are the ones who followed their passion and chose a course of study that really spoke to them. Those who majored in a subject solely for financial gain are the ones who will wake up one day 20 years from now and realize they hate their jobs — and lives, for that matter — in middle management. They sold out when they were a mere 22 years old and never allowed themselves to find true happiness.

That's not to say that everyone who rakes in big money is depressed. If business makes you happy, by all means choose a career in accounting. But do not simply do so because it will appease your parents and allow you to find a posh apartment. These choices cannot be made based on monetary issues alone. Think hard about what you want to do, open your doors of perception and take your time.

But one thing is certain, at least if you want to maintain a shred of dignity: you can't stay an undergrad. Trust me. You do not want to be that guy who should have graduated years ago, but, much like Peter Pan, refuses to grow up and still hangs out with freshmen.

As for me, I kept my options open towards the end of my senior year — code for "I have not the slightest idea what I will be doing after graduation, and screw you for asking."

I had a degree in journalism and political science, but did not want to capitulate to the man just yet. After reading a number of books that critiqued the American way, I thought to myself, "Let's go to Europe. Sure, the plumbing doesn't work, but, damn it, they know how to live!"

So I packed my bags and embarked on my spiritual quest. It was quite a trip. However, after visiting six countries and arguing with a Parisian who was convinced Pres. George W. Bush planned Sept. 11 for oil money ("Yoo see, zee thing iz, Boosh 'ad eeksplosives in zee building zat eeksploded before zee plane 'it. Zere was no plane reekoge at zee Pentagon. Your president keeled sousands of people, all in zee name of oil!") I was no closer to choosing a career, and I had absolutely no money.

I still had some rebellion in my system, placed there primarily by Hunter S. Thompson and Ken Kesey, acid guru extraordinaire and author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest." One afternoon while taking a break from reading "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test," a book on Kesey, I turned on CNN and saw that Kim Jong II was threatening total nuclear annihilation and thought to myself, "Let's move to South Korea and teach English. That will freak out the squares."

So, in one short month, I will be living around Seoul, unable to speak one word of Korean and knowing surprisingly little about the culture. It is what I want to do, not what my friends, family or professors wanted. And screw you for wanting me to fit into a cookie cutter world.

Rob Hunger ([email protected]) is continuing to blow minds halfway across the world.