Life After Graduation

Anyone who foolishly believes they will immediately attain a job in the field that they have strived three years in, needs to tune back to the reality of graduate life. As a recent graduate, and new to the world of full time work, I have realised the stress and trepidations that come with complete independence, income worries, council tax, utility bills, house hunting and house sharing. And I hasten to include the most difficult of all of these, growing up in to a respectable adult.

Over are the days of late nights and partying till the early hours, drinking and then stumbling into lectures with that terrible hangover still hovering on the periphery of your vision. Then checking your bank account constantly till the second that loan, grant or bursary come in. Or spending forty-eight hours straight in the library for that essay you left till the last minute (not going to lie, I will not miss that one).
                Instead, you will be working the nine till five every day, and it hits you just how exhausting it actually is. As a twenty-one-year-old, who has lucked out for the last five years by budgeting his EMA and student loan to avoid working while studying. I now understand after working eight hour shifts five days a week, why my own Dad fell asleep on the settee all those times when he came back from work. It is especially draining for the first few weeks; unless you have worked part time most of your life.
                In the end, concentrating fully on an academic career, and not working during your study will inevitably hinder your professional career. Some people I met through university have managerial/supervisory experience, and they are in their twenties. And I don’t have to remind you of the expectation of such credentials from prospective employers. A degree alone is just a certificate after all. Therefore forcing oneself to do all the extra curricula activities, promotions, volunteering, campaigns will not only get you noticed by future companies, it will boost your CV exponentially.

Once you leave you will have the arduous task of finding a job. Any job will do for the time being, right? But have you really stopped to think about the job market today, no one can just find a job, and our generation is more knowledgeable than ever about this challenge we face.
               Some may be incredibly lucky like me, finding a job in the heart of a bustling metropolitan like Manchester. These are opportunities that are seldom thrust every graduate, so take what you can get a first, till you can establish yourself. By then you will be ready to job hunt, for something more befitting your academic aptitude.

                As most if not all graduates tend to go home till they have established enough capital and experience to find their own place, some will venture in to the corridor of complete independent living. As frightening a concept as this might appear, most of the time you will have no problem with it. If you have friends you want to live with then you can rely on one another to search for housing close to your work that befits your current living habits; hopefully an upgrade from the “squalor” of student digs. After all, you are young professionals now. If, in other cases you are going alone, just take your time, look at lots of houses, find the one and the house mates that you feel comfortable with, and of course do lots of research on the house and area. Once you have done that, then the hard part is over.

Graduating is the easy part. It is the parts afterwards that may cause some unexpected distress. If you can live comfortably with a temporary job on your own, take it. Go where the jobs and opportunities are available to you; don’t necessarily follow what everyone else is doing. Convenience is your best friend: for travel, utilities and shopping. Remember, you have to pay council tax now, no more exemptions. With that in mind, remember your utility bills too. Research the area, house history, landlord/company, and be sure this is the right house for you. Be cautious of late nights; you have work in the morning. However, try to keep active, have fun and broaden your horizons; you are getting older and need more stimulation till your career takes off.
                The most important thing though is to insist on pushing yourself. That means interview after interview and application after application. You may fail a hundred times, but it will mean you will become a hundred times wiser because of it. I am sure most would concur that they want their degree to unlock doors to the future, so I say, use it and express your potential.

  

Cautiously Drifting ...

Cautiously Difting, endlessly observing.

We are the watchers who guard the night, we are the mediators who hold the light.
Carrying candlesticks of crimson guilt, melting, burning, fizzling out.
The streets are paved with lecherous promises; ones which end abruptly and chaotic.
These arbitrary spots are precious reminders of a past once clean.
Innocence lost, frivolity obtained.
Ghouls of an amber tinted glow; stalking a prey, feeding off knowledge.
The learned suffer, but Karma delivers retribution.
Like the cogs of a clock and the bees of a hive; the world we in habit keeps proceeding undeterred.
Entropy's curse; space, time and shock. The material decay, conclusion to a moral clock.
Impulsive vices are inconsequential, superficial to the fastidious consumers of the unhindered conformity.
Lambs to the slaughter, cannon-fodder in a domestic space.
We are the human race. Fallible and idiotic. Watch how we trip over our own feet.      

University

In my overtired, yet underspent state, I decided to stop revising for my final exam and write a little entry in my journal, and soon after a poem emerged. I really enjoy Modernist literature, especially Modernist poetry. Being a person who has never accepted the constraints of a system of subject criteria or rules to govern a poem's structure; like that of the Shakespearean sonnet. I find the free range and lack of structure more appealing to my style of writing; especially concerning the use of allusions to great classics. Albeit my poetry seldom does not have a degree of high culture about it; considering my references are based on pop-culture, and the style itself is more indicative of Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl' it represents something more of a post-modern free verse poem. I don't tend to rhyme either, and if I do it is often to disrupt the pattern or half-rhyme to simply produce some fluidity in subjectivity. In this sense, I owe a lot of my poetic inspiration to T.S Eliot's 'The Wasteland'.

26/05/2014

University

Relationships.
They crash, they burn, they melt and glow.
One will improve, one will proceed, one will be meager, one will succeed.
Another will yield, another will subsist, another will dispute, another will resist.

Second-hand visions, with nausea in tow. Eyes wide and vapid, and cheeks with vermilion glow.
Grease stained hands, fingertips cheesed. Is that the food or is that the mead?
Hardly a sight that isn't recorded, snapped, tagged, bombed or blogged.
Information all accessible from a night cloudy and fogged.
Then there's the work; books, journals and texts.
Off goes my phone; where are we off to next?
A new bar, saloon or club. Costumes, camaraderie, lethargy and grub.
Return to our digs, burnt toast, a fire begins.
Ushered outside; glassed paved-pavement and blood stained chins.
Fights ensue, no clothes and hot heads.
Red heads, Blonde heads, Brown heads, Black heads, White heads, oh wait ... I am no longer a teenager.
Let us shed those acne based puns and rejoice in our beds.
Frivolous sex; one, two, three or four. Just remember protection and always lock the door.
Use a hat, use a tie, use a belt or a stick. We all have costumes, masks and a side that's sick.
Friends are balanced, your time managed well.
Lecturers would be proud, but not of your last drunken spell.
So proceed on with caution; get an A, get a first.
Quench your appetite and quench your thirst.
A thirst for knowledge, a thirst for the next step, a thirst for life, experience and rep.
An online presence, a face for the next life. An online profile, a profile that's rife.
With expression, thoughts and whimsical quotes.
You think you're a Descartes; delusional worth it denotes.
But soon you will graduate, no more laughs, fun and games.
Maturity, job hunting, and ridiculous work names.
Like 'Big John' or 'Tuna' or 'Anna Faris Twin.'
Or 'Stoner,' 'Drunked,' or 'Lazy-arsed Kid.'
You'll reflect on those days, so close and just gone.
You'll wish you did better, a first grade or none.
So I'll tell you, from a man who's been there, done that, drank like a mule, drank like a twat.
Indulged till he blew out his mouth, nose and arse.
Performed song, dance, and ritual; which people thought were farce.
Just stick by these rules, and treat them like Gold.
Not the Golden Rule, or shower, that's just old.
Instead: parents will say, 'spend it wisely, and don't go crazy.'
You'll misconstrue, and your memories will go hazy.
From another night of Red Bull, pro-plus and library days.
Your head will spin, effervesce and eventually blaze.
But you get independence, maturity and a personal sense of integrity.
After all, what can one expect, from going to university.

Matthew Smart
26/05/2014