Everyone told me that university would be hard, but no-one told me graduating was harder.
I thought that after 4 years at uni I would leave with a good degree and move straight onto the next big thing. But no, that didn’t happen. Instead, in the almost 2 years since I graduated I have…
- Lived in 3 cities in 2 countries
- Moved house 9 times
- Had 4 jobs
Truth be told, this is not really how I thought it would go.
While I was finishing my studies, I applied to grad schemes and publishing jobs before deciding to move to Germany. I’ve spent the time since then trying to start a career and find a place to live. It’s not gone as great as I’d hoped (see the above stats). To cope, I’ve redefined my criteria for what I constitute “failure” multiple times only to, each time, manage to find a way to make it happen. I’m built different like that.
In the end, I’ve decided success is (a) having a paid job and (b) having a room to sleep in. Since graduating, there has been a total of 2 months (Jan & Feb ’25) where both of these were true and would continue to be true the next month. As I’m sure you can imagine, this lack of stability makes things pretty stressful.
Alongside this, I struggled to find a purpose after pursuing my degree for so long. I’d never been an academic weapon, but I’d always treat my degree like the main focus of my life, so when it was over I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I battled with the lowest self-worth I’ve ever faced, thinking and really believing that I was a waste of space. Without seeing myself succeed at something, just any one of my goals, I thought the evidence agreed – I was useless.
All that being said, this time where things haven’t worked out as I’d hoped has not made me a failure.
These experiences taught me an incredible amount about myself and the world; too much to write down. I saw my resilience skyrocket as I pushed through believing I was worthless, and did things anyway. I found out what I wanted to do for my career and decided to turn it into my calling.
As for feelings of self-worth, after a while I realised I just don’t have to be a victim. I choose whether or not to listen to what my inner voice and the world tries to tell me; give up, don’t keep going.
All of these are wins; none of them possible without my experiences. I’m glad to have the time to use and profit off the lessons I’ve gathered, because things aren’t going to get any less complicated.
So, what would I say to a freshly graduated me?
Ignore the things going wrong and trust you will figure out how to make things work. Tell bad luck to go fuck itself. Accept that you aren’t in control of your fate, just roll with the punches and refuse to acknowledge their attempts to knock you out.
I would also politely break it to him that he don’t have a choice to “contentiously object” to the existence of ghost jobs, the rise of AI CV screening or an overly competitive job market. It’s reality, make it work.