It is very true what they say about the chapters of your life. I always thought that the transition from university to work would be easy, after all I have just spent three years working hard, and playing harder. But alas, absolutely not. No-one gives a crap that you have been to uni, that scrap of paper, your certificate is worthless. The second I walked across that stage and shook that man's hand that was it. I was a stereotype, a statistic; unemployed graduate with debt.
This gave me little option but to move back home. Moving back with my parents has on the whole been a nice experience for me. I have an entirely different relationship with my mum than I had before I left or during uni. We get on, and that is fantastic. My Dad treats me like an adult, listens to what I've done at work and gives me helpful advice- this is what he knows. I don't always cook for myself anymore, and yes my mum does my washing for me (thank you Mum!). But I miss the student life- the freedom, the communal atmosphere, the feeling that you could do anything. The world was our oyster and our overdrafts the funding for it.
But now, you are a graduate. An adult. Time to get a 'proper' job, and do the things we 'should' do. Being an unemployed graduate is hard in this current economic climate. Well, being unemployed is hard! I have always had a part time job since I was 16, but the move home had ended that. Throughout school they try to prep you, questions fired at you about your 'plans for the future' but at uni they leave you to it. Typically it is your peers, parents and family friends that become the quiz masters. Personally, and it's not that I am goalless, but I have never had a career in mind. I continued my education to uni to do English Lit because I enjoyed it. It is that simple. I wanted to. So when it came to finding a job that wasn't serving tables or pulling pints I was stumped.
This led to agency work, temping. I was lucky, after moving home in July 2012 I had two weeks of aimlessness/boredom and then I had a job. I worked in several places over summer before stumbling into my current full time role after seeing an internal email at the company I was temping at. After a job application and interview I realised I had done what I 'needed' to do. A full time 'adult' job was mine. I had enjoyed temping, it's new faces, tasks and challenges every week but this was the security I craved in all honesty. I now knew how much I was actually going to earn that month!
Being the 'new girl' is hard but starting at the bottom is exhausting. I can't breeze in one week and be gone for the next like I did in temping. You see things that you didn't whilst temping, like office politics. It shocks me how the contrast between the easy-going 'everyone gets on with everyone' attitude that there is at uni to inside the office is so vast. But I won't go into that. The graduation glow quickly washes off in this 'real world', people don't care if you have a degree, that your life changed in those 3/4/5+ years. That moving home feels like a big deal to you and you are trying to cope. That chapter of you is closed, it is about the here and now, which I believe is right- after all, you are there to do your job, not to sit around and pat each other on the back. There seems to be a line that you cross in obtaining this 'adult' life where you may have to push yourself to accept this new role and shake off that one of student. It's all about acknowledging that life moves forward and you are there to not only develop yourself but try to bring your skills and attitude to that workplace. I like my job, I like the majority of people that I work with. I am interested in my role, which I think is the most important thing. I enjoy all the challenges that I am faced with everyday. I aspire to work hard, to be fantastic at my job and to achieve promotions.
It has been hard trying to drop the protective cocoon of education and what came with it (namely for me, a fantastic supportive network inside and outside of uni/work) to start anew, to become this 'adult'. I think many of us whilst at university believed that after coming out of uni everyone would want us because of our degrees. We became expectant that life would give us a shortcut because of this. But they don't and they won't. However, it is not about forgetting what you have learnt but rather to utilise it in a new environment. So no-one may care in the office whether you have a degree or not, but then what does it matter if you can type so damn fast, organise things efficiently and multi-task like no other and get all your work done to the highest standard, communicate well orally and in writing as well as other skills so well.
This chapter of my life may be challenging and entering the workplace towards the bottom of the heap will be rough- but doing everything to the best of my ability using what I know will aid me. Others may not even acknowledge it, especially as I expand on my CV in the future but my degree was an accomplishment and I am very proud of myself for it. It has given me the skill set I need for the workplace, and in a way it has presented me with the opportunity to prove myself and to justify that I deserve to be in a position of greater responsibility and take on other challenges in the future by working hard now. Yes I miss living with my friends and the university lifestyle, especially as many of them are still living it- but this is what I want to do, and it is the right step for me. So here's to the new chapter.
