The Life and Times

I am one of the 40,000 unemployed graduates in UK. Long gone are the days when a graduate was the product sought after by booming businesses in the biggest cities. Projects and salaries used to be thrown mercilessly at the feet of those departing the world of studenthood.

Please excuse this rolling fleet of clichés, but, for the 40,000 – gone are the days of sleeping till noon, partying till dawn, all-night library outings, and the enslaving hours that facebook takes out of your life.

Perhaps many of us were sheerly ignorant of the outside world. At university, for three years, one thinks one is grown up, independent, living on ones own. £3000 loan is granted each year which covers course costs, and almost £4000 each year is granted each year as student loan (or ‘spending money’ as it became known). The words ‘interest’, or ‘tax’, don’t mean anything significantly important.

Wherever you go, students are everywhere. People your own age, with dreams, aspirations, hopes, and fears which match your own. You think: ‘I can hack this outside world malarkey.’

Throughout my final year of study (by which point, it was ‘study’, and not the cliché-ridden student life as previously mentioned), the country was sinking into an unfathomable financial crisis. Of course I was aware of this; but the sheer audacity of it improbably slipped my mind.

Since leaving school in 2004, I have always maintained a working position. During my college years, I worked part-time in the Early Learning Centre; when I returned home from university each summer, I worked in a kitchen and even as an assistant builder. During my final year of study, I took a job in a bakery for some extra funds. Throughout this time, in retrospect, I was both naïve and ignorant to the fact that the recession was as bad as it truly turned out to be.

Whenever I was in college, or returning from university, or indeed at university, I always found it easy to find employment – and thought with a degree under my arm, it would be just as easy once graduated.

I was told relentlessly throughout my childhood how important it was to get good grades, work hard, and go to university. After all this I will be in the grand predicament of having to choose between two or three thriving companies of which to work for.

Reality hasn’t been that fair to me though. While I did the late nights, random parties, and days on end watching DVD box sets; I always worked hard. There was never a lecture unattended, or a group meeting cancelled. Essays were always completed on time, and I was always on first-name-terms with the community careers advisors. I always wanted to succeed, and I always worked hard. My ignorance, however, probably slopped out as I presumed too much. I presumed I would walk into a glamorous job, I presumed I would be on a gobsmacking salary, I presumed I would be straight onto a clear and prosperous career path, and I generally presumed that all would be rosy and well.

It isn’t.

But it’s ok.

I have kept on working hard: researching, networking, emailing, applying, speaking, speculating, asking, praying, hoping, and writing. Amongst other things.

Although it does sliver into insignificance, people constantly tell me: ‘It will be alright. Something will come along eventually.’ And I do believe they are right. I am a firm believer that you can do pretty much anything if you put your mind to it.

But for now, the hunt continues. I just need something good to come along. And hopefully 39,999 other graduates won’t spot the job advertisement.