The realities of finishing University

I remember the night I found out I was going to graduate Uni with a 2:1 (six years ago may I add, omg!). Our results were available on the University portal at midnight and I remember logging in, taking a deep breath and clicking to reveal my grade. I was so relieved! Three years of hard work (and maybe a bit of partying) had paid off, but once it had sunk in I was like 'so, what now?'.

When I was at Uni I had this great dream that I was going to graduate and immediately get a job thanks to my degree. For the small majority this might be the case but for most people the reality is that you'll probably be going back home for a considerable amount of time in order to job hunt. I moved back home and went to work at a holiday camp while job searching. It took around a year or so before I found something but I went through lots of interviews and lots of knockbacks before getting a job, which I might add isn't in a glitzy magazine in London that I so naively thought it would be when I first started my course.

Looking back it was so unrealistic to think I'd simply go straight into a job and I feel like it's so important that students know that it's not a race. You have to do what's best for you and if that's moving home and working in a retail job or in a bar or anything like that then there's no shame in it. In fact taking time out after Uni to do something completely different and just get used to not being a student anymore is probably a good thing because you can have a good hard think about what it is you actually want to do. You might want to go traveling for instance. I thought what I wanted was a glitzy magazine job in London but now I couldn't think of anything worse than living in London to be honest!

In the end I got a job in PR and while it wasn't a magazine there was/is still lots of writing involved and I've discovered a love for blogging and social media, something I didn't really have while at Uni.

I certainly don't want to put anyone down if they've just received their final grade but I think it's so important that people are realistic about what happens after Uni. Personally I think it should be something that is told/taught to us before we even start. You might go straight into a job with your degree and that's great or you might end up doing something completely different and that's great too. Don't get too bogged down in finding the 'dream' job and just see where life takes you.