Episode 1: Life after University, or, ‘What Katie did next’
So, there I was, contented, having sat the last exam, endured the last ceremony and inwardly bid farewell to the majority of my affiliations with the University of Liverpool. But what next? Was I supposed to have a master plan, a bigger picture looming ahead like a clear path to be trodden without diversion, or was it all too much too soon to be lurching into a career job?
Initially, I decided on the former: I had been job hunting, in theory, since February before graduation and now with my degree under my belt, I truly believed I had a golden ticket into the job of my dreams. And at first, the responses were encouraging, caught up in the whirlwind recruitment drive of June and July; it seemed that jobs were plentiful, opportunities presenting themselves one after the other to aid me on my way to an ambitious pursuit of a high flying post in marketing. My CV was posted online for recruiters everywhere, it seemed, and in my exuberantly confident frame of mind there was no reason I shouldn’t be snapped up like a hot cake.
Of course this sounds incredibly arrogant and self-assured, but university promises greater things beyond the white collar working life. It mentally conditions those who pass through it into a somewhat false sense of security that we will bypass such – gasp – mediocrity and speedily ascend into the dizzy heights of executive status. However, after undertaking a couple of marketing-orientated jobs that proved both unrewarding and ultimately unsuited to my skills and interests, I began to question what it was that I was actually pursuing, what was this “big picture” and what were the red flags that I should be looking for to direct me along the right path towards it? I think the answer, in hindsight, is that there are no red flags. There is no clear path to success. More importantly, and more inspiringly, it is only through overcoming times of adversity that we become shaped as individuals and begin to recognize our own strengths and weaknesses along the way, thus helping to shape our vision of the future as one that we can enjoy within these initial struggles and temporary limitations.
So, once I began to refuse the advice to go for a career job or a graduate training scheme, deeming it too clinical and too boring to enter into a serious career at such a young and green age, I was able to take my blinkers off and think laterally. And I started to enjoy the freedom of possibilities that opened up because of this new more positive and liberal mindset. Beyond the boxed in notions of possibilities for graduates there is a wider world of opportunities that, far from providing a secure, straight and narrow path, will take twists and turns into unchartered and unexpected areas of experience and despite being slightly down on the dollar, the lesser pressures and solidarity among my friends as we all encourage each other along the way have created a world around me that allows me to go with the flow, be proactive and take what comes, but ultimately enjoy wherever the journey takes me. To be continued…
