5 Years

A long 5 year trudge and I ALMOST have a degree. In one months time I will take my last exam and be walking out the door into the world. Though it has been 5 years of hard work, failure, new jobs, declining mental health and losing myself it hasn’t been all bad. I had some great times along the way, met amazing people and have learned so much about facing the world.

Though some people might think of anyone leaving university as the idle, avocado eating, ever travelling, forever living at home millenial. An offensive stereotype. My experience has been very different. I left home and moved across the country at 18 to attend university. My student loan covered my accommodation. That was it. So I got a job working at events as part of the stewarding team. No European gallivanting for me. Through my time at university I worked 30 hour weeks in many different sectors whilst attending lectures and doing coursework. Looking back this was to my detriment in terms of my degree but has served me well in trying to enter the graduate workforce.

3 years in it all came crumbling down. My mental health was so bad that if I wasn’t working or at university I was in bed. I failed one module on a small technicality and wasn’t allowed to resit but was to be made to repeat the year. This was the straw that broke the camels back. My worst fear had been realised. I was a failure. I fell apart and moved home. I applied to the local uni to complete my final year and was accepted.  I took a year out to complete the one module I’d failed and worked full time in a job I despised.

And now here I am in the final stretch.

Why am I telling you this?

I want to show that though the path isn’t straight and narrow it can still lead you to were you want to go. ‘Failure’ is painted as an end of the world occurrence in society today when actually it’s a normal thing. It happened, then you move forward. I’m 23 now, 2 years older than most of my friends when they got their degrees. I finish in one month and I had the offer of 2 good jobs to choose from. Many of my friends who graduated 2 years ago are still working in the job they were then and can’t seem to break in to the graduate market. So when it all falls apart and you think there is no way forward remember that there is always a way. Perhaps not the trodden path but your path is out there.