I have finished my degree! Had my last exam on Thursday, spent Friday packing, and Saturday travelling home. It’s so lovely to be home. So lovely.
As students will be finishing uni up and down the country and facing the transition into ‘the real world’, we all have to come up with some kind of answer to the question ‘What are you going to do now?’
It is a bit of learning curve. For the past 21 years, we have been buffeted from pre-school to primary school to secondary school, and then perhaps to A-Levels, and those of us finishing degrees, on to uni. It almost feels as though we have been blindly stumbling along a pre-planned path, and now we’ve reached the end of that path and have to figure out how we’re going to pay the bills and put food on the table. It is a slightly daunting prospect.
For some students, the inevitable will be delayed by embarking on a Masters degree. Masters undoubtedly make you more employable. They also cost a lot. Others will get a job. Others will travel. Some will go on and use their degree to begin education in a different area. I have friends going on to Medical School and Vet School. Others will volunteer, or go into internships. Some will get jobs that are related to their sector of preference. Some will get jobs that are utterly unrelated because of a need for money. Some will get married. The issue of funding is relevant to all these. With government grants and loans no longer and option, the money has to come from somewhere.
Everyone is also faced again with the slightly odd situation of people with whom you have become very good friends, and shared formative experiences with, will all disperse to various corners of the country, and sometimes, various corners of the world. Having spent three years together in a small town (in my case), suddenly you will never see some of them again. It is a slightly dizzying prospect, a time of huge change. Three years tucked up in a little insular world of studying, partying, lectures, exams, essays, trying to wrangle finding a house and living together, which sometimes goes well, and sometimes not, forming new relationships, some of which may last a lifetime, and suddenly we are flung, blinking, into the chaos that is the world, with all of its crowds, it’s rushing, a whirlwind of decisions to make, numerous balls to juggle with.
Everything is about to change.
Are you ready?
Sophie Davison 