I've been feeling quite down lately and I am not too sure if it is the rainy weather of this colourful autumn, or the fact that I miss my family and far away friends so dearly...I am not even sure if it is from the nostalgic feeling of the fast approaching Graduation and the official and so dreaded end of my university life.
If I can be perfectly honest, I must sheepishly admit that I don't know how not to be a student. How do I act? Must I transform over night into a highly respectable professional? Will there be a Tooth Fairy lookalike, wearing a suit, dropping by one night while I'll be fast asleep, who will leave a corrected version of my CV under my pillow? Will I even have to pay for this service or will she leave me a pay check and the message 'Congratulations! You are now a fully grown and capable woman who can start climbing the social and corporate ladder'?
For the last 15 years I have created a personal identity, always wearing my Converse (not the same pair - before I gross you out), with my backpack and my overfilled pencil-case - fully equipped with different sized and shaped colourful post its and highlighters - always on the verge of colour coding not only my study material but my personal life as well. This was all in my routine, a perfectly rehearsed graceful dance of life, which started with a few childish steps, but which has developed over the years into a way of life that I could perfectly perform with my eyes shut. ...but now what?
Today, however, I am the proud owner of an extremely expensive piece of paper stating that I do indeed have a degree, that I am fully qualified to work in my particular field of interest and that anybody in their right mind should employ me as I am young and hardworking, ready for a challenge and prepared to put in the amount of work required to start my career and prove myself as a 'professional'.
This was all in my 'young adult's guide to growing up, working hard and becoming someone' which has been imprinted in my brain starting with my parents as a little child, re-emphasized and highlighted by my school years and harshly tattooed into my brain by my University tutors.
All sounding colourful and optimistic so far, I have recently been hit by the cruel reality, shown by my esteemed University colleagues, that this seems to be a just a myth, an intensely circulated urban legend and that most graduates are still struggling to find a simple work place, not to mention the stepping stone to their future careers.
All this being said, I must stress the fact that I am not complaining about the lack of jobs available on the market today, nor the struggle young people need to go thorough to find their path in life.
My big question is how do you know exactly what you want to do with your life? I was 16 when I decided that I want to follow an advertising career and focused exclusively in getting a degree in advertising management. But this leads me back to my previous point...
I did all this, I've taken it step by step and I finally got the degree... Now what?
