Post-Uni Blues
The classic tale of gal goes to uni, thinks they're a grown-up. But graduates, and realises they actually know nothing...
It’s the early hours of the morning, I bathe in the artificial light of streetlamps, seeping in through my room window. I’ve been open-mouthed internet surfing mindlessly for hours, hell, maybe days. During my online voyage I encounter a gallery of photos. It shows teens enjoying themselves in that time of ‘weird pre-university limbo’.
That time before fleeing the nest to dive head first into the comfortable bosom of higher education; where you can enjoy the creature comforts of being a child, but in a somewhat simulated adult environment. The beautiful ignorance of having your life all laid out in front of you, finally finishing school and thinking: ‘This is it, I’ve done my part, everything I’ve done up until now has led to this. Now, I can sit back and hit the play button on life, as it all happens for me’-
Well, either I’ve hit the pause button, or the stop, because life isn’t going to plan.
Instead I feel like, I’m captured in a serious loop of regression. Back in my childhood abode, where stuffed animals from my formative years stare at me, pity in their vacant plastic eyes, as I replay PlayStation 2 games, dreaming of spontaneous outings, before sitting in the same chair for dinner at 7:30PM.
Now I know why there’s no gallery romanticising the period directly after graduation.
There’s nothing romantic about going for the weekly food shop with your mum, to make sure she gets the right kind of yoghurt you eat for breakfast now. It’s depressing.
A neurotic ticking time bomb has triggered in my head. What’s next?
It’s not just on my mind though. It’s on my parents’. And my grandparents’. And on the minds of miscellaneous relative(s) overseas. No everyone I haven’t found a job yet.
I know, it’s been two months.
Yes, I’ve been applying.
No, I haven’t heard anything.
Recent graduate Cameron, has also now moved back home and is experiencing a similar sense of purgatory: “Sure, it’s pretty nice being back home and seeing all my friends and family again but honestly I still haven’t broken out of the uni laziness of getting just enough done to get by. Not exactly a hermit but I don’t really have the motivation to be firing off anywhere in life yet”-
Joe, who’s also graduated, is stuck at home in the same situation: “I never relished the prospect of finishing uni; and sure enough, graduating has made me feel like a cat that’s been neutered".
They’re right. How can I be expected to find a job when I just got into the routine of memorising bin day? How can I be expected to have a 9-5 job when I consider watching a semi-historical documentary, a hard day’s work? I’m in the stock-pile of unemployed graduates, with degrees too broad to feed into a certain career paths;-unless you can call waking up at midday to have a stimulating cup of coffee, in preparation for a day of nothing, a career path.
This persistent feeling of being a non-entity almost makes me wish that I had an essay due, just to feel like I’m leading a meaningful existence again.
Should I have stayed on at education? In the same university town, nestled in the cosiness of the same group around me? Maddy, who’s still in that environment, reassures me on the phone that doing a master’s, wouldn’t really be for me:
"My future prospects have not been entirely enriched by pursuing this MA, but it quietens the screams of anxiety and keeps me off the streets for another year"-
-she says jovially, albeit with quietly sinister connotations.
I could have stayed with her. But knowing my habitual need to stick to familiarity, mixed with a lack of concept of time, before I knew it I’d be witnessing and partaking in my tenth fresher’s week and that’s more depressing than the aforementioned yoghurt thing.
It’s not like I thrived in an academic environment anyway. I’m just being excessively nostalgic. If you look back at your university career with rose-tinted glasses you’re doing nothing but masking the red, negative appearance of your bank statement. The jump from perpetual activity to the constant calm is disheartening; but there comes a point when you need to learn how to finance your lifestyle, all by yourself.
University isn’t the be all and end all as it’s made out to be when you’re growing up. Sure, that summer before uni is filled with electricity and expectancy, and it’s hard to re-capture that adolescent excitement.
Especially, when there’s lingering a feeling of how you’re meant to have it all together at this point, even though most of us clearly haven’t a clue. (And I’m pretty sure that those who look like they do, are just pretending).
But isn’t that the most exhilarating aspect in itself? Life can go in any direction, and armed with a degree, who knows where you could be in a year? Plus, it’s not just about where I could be; where could all my friends be? And what will we all be doing? It’s just another new chapter in your life, and it’s up to yourself to hit that play button again.
I talk to an old school friend, about what her plans are for escaping her post-graduation purgatory. Georgie’s a drama school graduate and has half-heartedly started to apply for jobs, due to not having the luxury of a student loan anymore (a loss we are all mourning deeply):
“I’m learning to be more patient with my goals and, I’m also realising that no-one, no matter what age, has their life completely together. I don’t think anyone fully knows that until they’re doing the thing they wanna do, and that’s fine”
For the first time, I have no idea what’s next and it really is fine. You’ve just got to keep living forward. Even if your version of living, is imitating the band which continues to play, as the ship sinks in Titanic. You’ve just got to play on.
Zaib Nasir
Insta/Twitter: @zaibybaby