Post University Flatness and Closing The Education Chapter
Adjusting to life after moving back home and the reality of Wednesday nights without an orange VK …
“Around the start of freshers’ week in September, I began to reflect upon the inverse: leaving university. I graduated in July and loved all four years of my Modern Languages degree. I had my ideal set up: studying something I loved, working a part-time job I actually enjoyed, writing for the uni newspaper, seeing my friends daily, living independently. I understood it was time to try my hand at something new, but I really, really missed uni. I still do. Leaving it threw everything up in the air and it has been a disorienting experience since.
I was always very studious through school, A-Levels and university, and I no longer had a scale against which to hold myself up. Damaging as it was, how did I know I was doing okay if I didn’t have the marks to show for it? With no tangible goals, I felt I’d lost the outlet for my ambition. Who am I now, I wondered. And how to reconstruct my social life when the majority of my friends are scattered around the country and beyond? I am lucky to have somewhere to go back to, but living at home as a 22 year old, with my own ways and preferences was testing and it brought about feelings of inadequacy. I felt like a child; while I contribute to bills, I resent not being financially independent. Gone are the days of walking along the street to see my pals, and enter the sort of planning akin to organising a royal wedding. Finding a time when everyone is free is difficult, so you have to plan weeks or even months in advance. To traverse the country by train requires a lot of effort and money, but of course I don’t think twice to see my friends.
“I felt sure that my uni peers must be having similar back-down-to-earth-with-a-bump experiences, yet couldn’t see any of it.”
Shortly after moving back home, I found myself a part-time job at a shop I love with a team I felt part of, and began weekly volunteering for a charity whose sentiments chimed with my own. I added tutoring to the mix, and began a shorthand course as a new skill for a potential journalistic career. All of this kept me from twiddling my thumbs at home, but from a young age I knew a set career path mattered to me greatly. My own projections of myself were not transpiring so I felt a certain amount of shame about it. I well understood that I would not drop into a ready-made career, yet I was blindsided by the difficulty of getting a full-time role which used my degree. I have applied for over 70 jobs, and many applications yielded not even an email to tell me I was unsuccessful. I was always aware of the challenging job market and the need for patience while finding a role, yet it does not mean the soul-sucking process of looking for one was made easier. Though I don’t take each rejection personally, it doesn’t mean I don’t question the value of my skills. I have always sought control and agency, and it has taken me many months to acclimatise to this newfound uncontrollable, post-university wasteland. I was confronted with the fact that no matter how hard I tried, this is not an exam to pass, nor an essay to ace because I have no control over external factors. This has frustrated and freed me in equal ways.
I felt sure that my uni peers must be having similar back-down-to-earth-with-a-bump experiences, yet couldn’t see any of it. Not that I wanted to see my own struggles mirrored in others, but all I did see was a social media gloss of fun and fulfilment, and no doubt my own profiles fed this narrative back, because don’t we all post a highlight reel?
Rocketing through final year in a haze of deadlines, making the most of the abounding opportunities university offers, then going back home and throwing myself into other commitments, left me depleted. I think ‘burnout’ can be overused -- yet packing my time with something, anything, to imbue purpose into a time when I felt purposeless, along with the existential crises descending daily, meant I verged near to a nervous breakdown. I found day to day tasks utterly overwhelming. Sometimes I would have to go and lay down for 20 minutes to collect myself. Occasionally I’d feel nauseous leaving the house due to sheer mental exertion. I began to choose what I would wear the following day the night before, because basic decisions were too much on the spot. I uncharacteristically found myself unable to motivate myself and concentrate on tasks, frittering away so much time, trying but failing to make progress with anything much at all, not even knowing what progress would look like. I felt lost and questioned absolutely everything, and had to work hard to maintain the self-assurance I had previously possessed. I sometimes felt alone, and often unable to verbalise it.
“Gone are the days of walking along the street to see my pals, and enter the sort of planning akin to organising a royal wedding. ”
What eventually helped me was to look at how I could get what I felt I needed in the given situation. I like structure, so I tried to assemble some of this by creating a routine out of my various commitments. I recalled someone once saying ‘you have to rest to be your best’ and decided to action this after years of ignoring it. Most people know the feeling of there always being something else you could do and, boy, did I use every second. I preferred it this way, but it took its toll. So I am sure to take two days off each week, when I do whatever I fancy- revolutionary. I leaned on my two long-time hobbies of running and reading to prop me up more than usual, but that’s okay. Over time I have been surprised by how I am learning to be kinder to myself. My excessively high standards mean perfection is my (foolish) pursuit; I am my own taskmaster, but slowly, I am beginning to recognise whatever I have managed and cheer myself for it
I don’t have the answers, but I am making peace with that. I’m still not comfortable with thinking of this time as a post-uni gap year, even though it is beginning to look something like one, but I see that by not having jumped into a career, it doesn’t mean my former self has disappeared. I understand now that ambition and being settled can co-exist, and maybe you need both. I still battle with my sense of worth and general direction, but I see I can be more fluid with myself and my goals. I have often been plagued by the notion of wasted time, but I am becoming less tunnel-visioned: I open my eyes to the value of the small experiences and lessons that this time brings. Where is the fun if you land at the elusive end point, anyway?”
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Thank you so much to the wonderful Charlotte for contributing such a vulnerable and open piece- we’re sure so many of you will relate to the feelings she’s shared. To read more from Charlotte you can find her on her own blog www.charlemmablog.wordpress.com or on Instagram at @_charlottemma.