New Angles: Pt 1

Every person at some point in their life feels lost, their life all of a sudden breaking to a screeching halt and despite the helpful words of friends and family, the individual cannot seem to break away from the vastly enclosing limbo.

Ex students often suffer from this, consistently mulling over questions in their head. Do I work for the man or myself? What’s my five year plan? Do I even have a two year plan? Not always initially releasing that without first asking the simpler questions, the bigger ones can never be answered.

Just recently finishing my journalism degree, I spent the past three years praying to something (most likely non religious) to end the recession before I graduated and immaturely convinced myself that once I’d walked away with that degree and three years work experience under my belt that the jobs would come rolling in – I even had an offer that fell threw at the last minute.
Truthfully, I have felt chest fallen and occasionally useless, unsure whether to bite the bullet and get a job that is beneath me, open up my own website or hold all hopes in the one suitable journalism job that appears on Journalism.com every few months.

Most have advised the first choice, but like any headstrong determined youth I (like everyone) know myself and can’t fall victim to a degrading pointless job that will rot my brain and devour my creativity. Understandably, some people wouldn’t agree with this - a jobs a job right?
Ask yourself this then. How many miserable middle-aged people do you know that have worked (any old) jobs all their life and have consequently become boring, tired couch potatoes who have a worn out Sky Plus button and 50 ready meals in the freezer?
A person, whose drivers licence, says 1965, but they look like 1945? These are the people that had a dream and gave up. You ask why I want to join them!

I’m not slating those who work, they are admirable people, someone has to ring through my cigarettes, empty my bin and file my database stolen details – it’s just not for me.
Yet despite having a rough outline of what you think you want, can you ever be sure what your real want is?

The ET recently estimated that a fifth of homes in Peterborough were jobless, this is almost one in five people. The unemployed often get ridiculed for being ‘dole dossers’ or ‘bums’, yet this is generally down to the uneducated in the worthless jobs. It’s the higher paying jobs that aren’t available and that’s why more students are out of work, eventually and reluctantly removing their hard earned degree from their CV in extreme efforts to snag that interview for the Mr Shoes Xmas Temp position – at £5.93p/h.

Most amusing of all, most young people don’t miss the big things when they find themselves jobless, they miss new clothes, Jack Daniels, the ‘good’ cigarettes and the occasional all night session – or maybe that’s just me.

Rites of Passage: Over Qualified and Under Appreciated

Two years ago I lay back and breathed a sigh of relief, the part time level 2 Journalism course I was going to take was out the window and I was signing up for a Journalism degree; three weeks before the beginning of term.
I made this spontaneous decision simply on one ground; I was told I was over qualified. This sent messages spiralling through my mind; “Overqualified? I will never have a problem getting a job again!”, “Wow, maybe I’m not so stupid after all” and “With a degree I’m sure to have a amazing career.”
Well guess what, I was so WRONG! And everything I thought was true at the time was/is probably the opposite.

To be blunt, some people are threatened by the fact that I’m doing a degree, often they will act like smart arses to try and get one up on me, what they fail to realise is, I’m an ordinary person that’s only brilliant in one area; and even that’s a bold statement!
People also go onto me about the amount of debt I will be in after my final year. But maxing out your credit card on the latest fade clothing or Lady Gaga gig tickets is ok?! I prefer to see a degree as an investment, a potential flop investment yes, but that’s the price of professionalism.

For seven months since Christmas I have been unemployed and looking for work, imminently qualified and experienced (thank you very much), I have struggled like crazy to find a job. Employers have been put off by the fact that I finish in a year, assuming that the second I finish my degree I will be whisked off into the wonderful world of Journalism, making thrice what they earn and only come back to visit so I can rub it in their sad uneducated face.
What they forget is, there’s still a recession and journalism jobs are about as common to me as a major shopping spree in Camden.
I know this because the second a took BA Journalism off my CV the interviews poured in and in two days (YES TWO) I got a job as a bartender/waitress/cleaner at the local pub.

It also might interest you to know that the government doesn’t look after the future...
During Summer breaks we get absolutely no funding except for one lousy bursary of £250, which they don’t even bother giving you a date of payment for.
Worst still, we can’t go on Job Seekers Allowance, can’t get housing benefits after the age of 20, we have to pay for our prescriptions and dentist bills and even then I don’t get the nice shiny white fillings... Oh no, it’s standard mercury black for us!
So you are left with a few choices, you can:

A: Save your grant/loans/bursaries like wild fire all year preparing yourself for the big budget blow of the Summer.

B: Get an overdraft

C: Turn to a life of crime

Or D: Get that New Look store card you’ve always wanted with the 29.9% interest rate (YAY)

Or failing that you could not mention your on degree at all and instead pretend that you’re a chain smoking dole dosser with no life. Employers prefer people that are dumber than they are, so get that blonde peroxide out, pull your socks over your trousers and be prepared to put the English language to shame. You have a fun three years ahead of you 