Congrats on Graduating— Now Life Starts to Suck

If you're a graduating college senior who didn't get to hear the president warn you about iPads, never fear: Teddy Wayne has some words of wisdom for you. But first, congratulations: "Your reward is here: compulsory, harder work for the next 40 years!" And don't worry, 18th-century French Lit majors. "Even if you didn’t study economics, you’ll soon learn a few concepts, because immediately after this speech ends your student loans begin collecting interest."

You could delay that by going to grad school—and "emerge equally bankrupt at 30"—or business school, "where smart people do keg stands for two years to build their networks and then run the country into the ground." In looking out at the sea of hopeful graduates, "it makes me wonder if we’re doing our youth a disservice by overmedicating them and creating delusional ideations incommensurate with America’s floundering manufacturing industry," he writes for Vanity Fair. "Then I pop this awesome Xanax-and-Vicodin cocktail made in Guangzhou and just kind of mellow out and forget about it." (More college graduation stories.)