‘Can you
finish writing now. Put your pens down and close your answer booklets.’ There
it was, three years gone by in a flash. It took several days to appreciate that
it was over because the end of exams didn’t produce the joyous climax that had
come after completing GCSEs or A-Levels. Primarily because there was no long-term
goal due to the impulsive manner at which I think many undergraduates go about
their degrees. In my opinion the idea of fresher’s year being of little
academic consequence facilitates some of this aimlessness. The prospect of
working with discipline and to your full potential doesn’t seem to have any
obvious benefit apart from giving you a good reputation amongst your lecturers.
While I did work hard on the odd essay, I certainly lost a bit of the
self-discipline and graft that had led to a teacher (Mr Peach) laughing at me
when I suggested I wasn’t a nerd. Most undergraduates therefore tap into the
stereotype of subordinating their professional prospects to the essential F impulses; making friends, fucking,
getting fucked and having fun! This attitude spilled over a little into my
second year but thanks to an early epiphany caused by two bad results in two
hours and specialising in Mao’s big strop (aka the Cultural Revolution); I
ended the year on track for a first. By third year I was in the zone and was
even able to approach the exams without too much stress due to the confidence
earlier results had given me. This confidence was well placed and I earned a
first-class degree.
Choosing my
degree was fairly easy: it had to be History. I love History and I still do. It
is a subject that can be readily accessible and infinitely complex in equal
measure due to its diverse array of contents. However I did not want to go
further into the academic world as an Historian due to my desire to not lose
touch with the real world. However History comes with a tag line:
It
doesn’t close any doors but it doesn’t open any either.
The job
market can be hell for historians due to their lack of vocational specialty,
which means we can be overlooked and have to do a lot of researching and soul
searching before applying for anything. While I know this isn’t confined to
History there are definitely subjects where this isn’t a worry; my civil
engineer flatmate already had a postgraduate job sorted for him when he had
over a year to go, the bugger! It isn’t so much that History is a bad degree
(it is not btw), it’s more the fact that History’s Bachelors-of-Art aren’t necessarily sure what they want to do
and what they can do! The education system has guided most of us up till this
point, but afterwards it is in the hands of your-onesie-self and the global market.
During my
last year I let the market decide what was best for me, so I allocated time to apply
for jobs and grad schemes and attended around a dozen career lectures. In all I
felt a little hard done by. I had no luck with companies like the NHS and
Unilever because they obviously wanted someone with more experience. I was Clegged
by a Virgin Media employee who had assured me I’d get an interview. The only
interview I got was scheduled to be in London a week before my final exam,
which I told them I couldn’t do because it meant losing a whole day of
revision. On other occasions I just applied for the wrong thing or just didn’t
put enough effort in. I didn’t apply for Vodafone due to
tell-us-this-that-and-the-other exhaustion caused by other application forms
and the need to focus on an essay.* Then annoyingly two History friends got on
the scheme. GOD DAMN IT! So by the time I was told to give up my identity** in
June and put my pen down I found myself arriving in a desolate place known as
home.
Fortunately
(and at one point very unfortunately) for the two months after Uni I had others
things to evict my brain of the need to think about the future. I had a
wonderful month in Ghana, I went to the Olympics when Usain Bolt and Jessica
Ennis were competing, I played football regularly with friends, I had an
amazing graduation week which ended with me dancing on the bar of my favourite
pub till the sun came up and I went through every emotional state regarding
women: despairà indifference à reconciliation à fulfilment à confusion à carefree à reflection...
However then
the activities ended and I needed to assess where to go from here. Let’s just
measure up the pros and cons of my situation. Pro: I graduated with a First
Class degree. Con: Graduating means one is no longer a student. Pro: I don’t
have to cook and clean as much as before. Con: My reluctance to shop and cook is
no longer a means of trimming my waist line. Pro: I can see Derby County
regularly. Con: I can see Derby County regularly. Pro: My bed no longer squeaks
constantly. Con: My bed is above my parent’s bedroom. Pro: Rekindled old
friendships. Con: My number of friends readily available and within walking distance
has gone from several dozen to just several. Pro: I can once again exercise for
free due to the number of parks within close proximity. Con: For the first time
in eleven years I am without a football team. Pro: I have free time. Con: I
can’t decide what to fill it with.
I kept
instructing myself to turn the leaf back to the side that enjoys the sun; to
make sure I apply for all the jobs I can, to get an exercise routine going, go
out and find new friends and consume cultural things I’ve overlooked (e.g. a
few Inbetweeners episodes). However I
kept putting it off for a couple of weeks, a large portion of which was
occupied by a nagging virus confined to my head that made my lower body yearn
for the liberation of the guillotine. My 22nd birthday came about
and I thought that I needed to stop postponing the re-start date. So I thought
this is it, tomorrow start afresh. Unfortunately I was hungover, so I had to
change the date to the following day.
So far it
has gone okay; I’ve jogged each day, I’ve done some good reading, applied for a
few jobs, got an interview, put conditions on nights out and reduced computer
abuse. In fact I have made a small reassessment into how I use the internet by
starting this blog. Part of this is for me, a method of self-assessment. If I love
or hate my words enough maybe I’ll get that narcissistic thrill about my chest
or that compressed tension at the top of my spine that persuades me that I need
self-discipline. If one lesson from John Arnold’s brilliant book History can stay with me I hope it is
this, ‘the future remains as opaque and exciting as ever it did.’ Cheers John.
*The essay turned out to be 81%, so maybe I was wise not to
apply
**After exams but prior to graduation I was unsure how to
refer to myself. Was I a student or unemployed? My answer to whenever the
question was asked in a non-professional sense was that I was in Limbo.
