The Graduate

by Alex J Allen

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Fifteen weeks ago, almost to the day, I was embroiled in a fierce battle attempting to keep my graduation attire from degenerating in to the realms of scruffy and dishevelled. It consisted of a hat that wouldn't stay straight, and a robe which kept slipping down. For some inexplicable reason, the attire was finished in a colour I can only describe as peach. There was champagne, or at least sparkling white wine, overpriced commemorative photos, receptions under bright white marquees and the July sun bathing proceedings with a warm glow. In truth, I had never really comprehended an actual graduation until little more than week before the day itself. It would a great inaccuracy for me to try and suggest that I ever viewed a graduation ceremony as the culmination and reward for all my academic endeavours. I was too preoccupied with being holed up in the library revising in to the early morning, trying to make sure I actually got the degree in the first place to worry about celebrating it. However, even as I stood posing for the compulsory mantle place photo at the reception after the ceremony, being told to smile in a way that I knew well in advance of my mother's disappointed reaction would make me look like a demented drug addict, I realised that tomorrow I was out on my own. No more years of education to hide behind, no more 'studying' financed by somebody elses money. This was it. This was the last hurrah. It wasn't that I was pessimist about the whole business, it offered as much opportunity as it did fear and trepidation. Nonetheless, it had finally arrived. Even as late as April, it still seemed like it would never happen, that somehow I was different. I would end up a celebrity, a lottery winner, a rock star. None of these dream careers materialised, largely because I made no effort to make them happen, and I don't play the lottery.

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Since then I've dealt with recruitment agencies so utterly inefficient and incompetent that I now assume they are just shop fronts concealing burlesque clubs or some other sordid activity. I've been rejected for jobs at H&M for being over qualified, and been gazumped by super graduates with a wealth of charity experience and hearts of gold for the meagre graduate jobs Norwich has to offer. I've filled out countless applications forms, answered every wacky question an interviewer can think of, and tried to squeeze my life story in to 400, 300 and even 250 words. Friends I knew from secondary school who didn't conform to the university route, or dropped out of it, are now earning in excess of twenty thousand per anum working as plumbers, builders and chefs, whilst coming second in so many interviews and having my CV unceremoniously binned by HR managers for a using a font too hard on the eyes has challenged my confidence in my own ability to an extent I never expected. The path to graduate paradise has proven to be anything but easy. More so, because the general degree that I chose to do, history and politics; A timeless classic, has proven to be as attractive to employers as having hooks for hands. My persistent attempts to convince would be employers of my vast array of transferable skills and how, actually, Medieval Britain is a lot like advertising if you think about it, have gone down continually like a lead balloon. A whole host of words that were gospel throughout your long years of education no longer apply, fairness for one. It's one thing winning against standardised testing that puts everyone on a level playing field, convincing someone to entrust a chunk of their business and reputation to you is another. Yet in this bleakest of times, surrendering is not an option. I'm not quite ready to don some sort of grotesquely coloured uniform and work for a pittance at a job I detest for infinity, in fact I shall hear nothing of it. I will continue to peruse the oddly named 'milkround.com', I will bombard these recruitment companies with calls and letters, and eventually Sarah will get back to me! I will break the £8 per hour barrier! Because in such situations, where your ability and education has been proven and is evident, persistence is really the only important currency of any aspiring graduate.