At some point during your time at university you will have that inevitable ‘oh my god, what happens next?’ moment. Your stomach drops, and for the next few hours you’re distracted by thoughts of ‘what on earth am I going to do with my life?’ and ‘I need a PLAN!’ It’s usually in third year, after opening yet another Milkround email with no graduate jobs you’re interested in, or being asked for the millionth time what you’re planning to do with your sociology degree by a friend of your parents and having nothing more intelligent to say than ‘travel’.
Is it really so unrealistic to hope for a job that’s well paid, respected and actually enjoyable? Or are these jobs just myths we’ve heard of a housemate’s boyfriend’s brother’s friend? You know, the blonde one that went off to London and married a lovely equally blonde accountant, made bags of money and lived happily ever after. Or are we destined to move back home, live with our parents and work in the pub down the road for the foreseeable future? Living vicariously through those lucky few university acquaintances that were jammy enough to get a graduate job by Facebook stalking them for years to come. Let’s hope reality of life after university isn’t as depressing as we fear it is.
YUSU’s ‘We are Golden’ week gave us hope (that’s if you’d even noticed it was going on). But are we really as golden as they make out? We’ve certainly been very unlucky with the economic climate and job market we’ll be entering. As you can probably tell, I had my mandatory panic about the future fairly recently; mine was brought upon by a mess up with my transcripts which pushed my master’s application back even further. Needless to say there were quite a few melodramatic hours spent freaking out; ‘what happens if I don’t get accepted?!’, ‘How will I even pay for it?’, ‘I might as well just give up now!’ My poor mother sat patiently at the other end of the phone offering a few ‘maybes’, ‘uh-huh’s’ and ‘it will all work out for the best’s’, until I realised how ridiculous I was being (Sorry Mam).
I spoke to a few other third years to see if this negative outlook was just me and apparently not. Even my friend Hannah, the most organised, dedicated and prepared person I know, the one who has all the work experience and interviews lined up, had her doubts. The girl even owns a suit! That’s how prepared she is, I don’t even own a blouse, I have no chance. Most people, like myself, are staying in education to make ourselves a little bit more qualified for that dream job, or have a long road of unpaid work experience ahead of us. While others are jumping straight in, hoping to get any job even if it isn’t what they were hoping for. At least then they’re starting to make money. Jobs are out there, even those elusive dream jobs, but they’re waiting behind hundreds of rejection emails, arduous hours of work experience and probably a bit more panic.