Can you really be anything you want to be?

We all remember that childhood conversation with our parents. The one where you’re told that you can be anything you want to be, just as long as you put your mind to it. I’ve always believed this to be true. After all, as children we are blank canvases, able to collect and create a multitude of experiences and opinions that make us ideal for our own futures. But thinking back to our childhood dreams, you have to wonder how plausible this idea is. Surely, it must be very few people that end up doing what they dreamed they would when asked the pivotal question, “What do you want to do when you grow up?”

I always wanted to be a marine biologist, convinced that this meant playing with dolphins all day rather than the reality of boats, labs and seawater. But if someone offered me the chance to be a marine biologist today, I’d have to turn them down. My sister on the other hand, answered that classic childhood question with similarly classic childish honesty. When she grew up, she wanted to be able “to drink Bacardi Breezers”.

Ask a class of kids today what they want to do when they grow up and you’ll get a lot of the same answers; the lures of pop-stardom and space exploration make for seemingly brilliant career choices. As adults we know the truth. With fame comes hard work, pressure and a near-constant hounding from the press; with space exploration comes isolation, intense physical conditions and an indelible helping of life-threatening danger. Not the best 9-to-5 career choices.

There comes a point in our lives, however, when our ability to do anything and to be anyone comes to pass. It’s difficult to say when that point is, and obviously with every door that we close on possible future careers, we open hundreds more with our commitment to a set route. When I chose to take no science subjects at A-level, I firmly closed the doors on medicine (and my misinformed dreams of marine biology), but opened up a world of opportunities to careers in the arts.

But at the age of 21, just four months after graduating, I already feel like my choices are incredibly narrowed. I’m a creative person and have a passion for advertising, for branding and for communications in general. In my ideal job I’d get to write and be a little bit creative every day. I have varied experience in all sorts of jobs; from writing yoghurt campaigns to tracking down financial criminals, as well as the more standard office and admin work along the way.

You’d think that this wide range of experience would make me an ideal candidate for any of the entry level marketing/design jobs I’ve applied for so far, and yet after several interviews I always hear that I’m a lovely girl, but just too creative for the job. Apparently creativity doesn’t work when you’re supposed to be doing admin day-to-day; I guess nobody wants a spreadsheet with panache. But do companies really need to employ the same old person to file, copy, print, repeat? Maybe employers are under-estimating the passion and commitment that today’s graduates have to break into their desired field, and can bring to any level of a business. We are well aware that we’ll have to start at the bottom, but are committed to making the most out of our opportunities to ultimately get to where we want to be.

All this raises an interesting issue. As a recent graduate, I’ve tried to make myself as employable as possible and am looking for an entry-level position to get into a company and progress. Yes, I have experience as a creative but that’s not all I’ve done, it’s not all I do, and I’m not even sure it’s all I want to do. I still feel very young, know that I have a lot to learn, and just want an opportunity to develop all my skills. What if I want to work as a project manager? A magazine journalist? A book critic? I have an excellent English degree and experience that makes me suitable for all these jobs – does my passion for advertising and my creativity mean I am any less capable of doing them?

So – can you really be anything? The job market today seems to think that you can’t. I’m determined to prove them wrong. Marine biology, here I come.

Just kidding. But arts, media, design, advertising, branding, marketing, PR, magazine and literary world – look out!

As seen on The Guardian Careers website:

http://careers.guardian.co.uk/graduate-career-goals-aspirations

The Art/Science of Degree Classifications

I just figured out my current average mark for my degree and whilst it is looking good, I am so ridiculously close to the borderline mark that I feel I just majorly upped the ante on my next two exams. It is such a nerve-wracking experience going into a 100% exam and knowing, not only could those three hours decide the module mark, but that those 3 hours could also decide your entire degree classification and potenitally even the rest of your life.

Ok, so maybe that last bit is a bit melodramatic….

Ultimately, I imagine there isn’t a great deal of difference (except for my own pride, satisfaction and £250 from my Uncle) between a 1st and a 2.1 degree in the job world. Grad schemes generally ask for a minimum of a 2.1 and at the end of the day, these three years of my life will just be expressed academically in one line of my CV. It’s the experiences I’ve gained during my studies that will be truly valuable in the end.

Degree classifications just seem a little bit hit and miss for me. In my course, it is unheard of for anyone to score above 80 (even though it technically goes up to 90) which means to get a 1st you really need to average between 68.6 and 80. For a 2.1 it’s 58.6 and 68.5. It just seems to  me like there’s a lot of room there for different people, and entirely different amounts of work and effort. To really stand out anymore you need to be getting a 1st, and yet these remain elusive for a lot of people. But there seems to be a lot of difference in how much effort someone puts in to their degree for a mark which is 68.5 and a mark which is 58.6 and yet these marks will achieve exactly the same result on their degree certificate, job applications and CV. Doesn’t really seem fair…

What is unbelievable is that there used to be no classification between a 2.1 and a 2.2, meaning that you could get a 2nd class degree if you got a mark between 68.5 and 48.6. That’s just ridiculous, and obviously why they changed the system.

But in a world where more and more people are becoming degree-level educated and more and more people attend university perhaps it is time to narrow down those boundaries even more.

Anyway, enough of my ranting (which is only here to disguise my absolute FEAR of these up-coming exams) and back to some actual revision. But *fingers crossed* for everyone about to do their final-year exams in the next few weeks.

And in a show of ridiculous positivity and optimism: Uncle, get out your cheque book.

The inevitable family questions

I guess I should have seen it coming. With the mass gathering of extended family at Easter, and the nearing prospect of the end of my degree, questions about what I was going to do with my life should have seemed inevitable. For the most part, people didn’t ask me too many (although this too hints at my mum pre-warning them not to, which isn’t good either).

I’m getting really frustrated with all this pressure as my degree comes to a close, although I know that most of it is self-inflicted. Right now, I need to be focusing on finishing my essay and revising for the up-coming exams and yet whenever I think about the end of my degree, I feel the need to research employers, look for jobs and internships to ensure that something will be sorted for when I graduate. I can’t bear the idea of sitting around doing nothing. And knowing that my family will silently (for the most part) be disappointed.

I have done some damage control though. Booking a visit to my friend Laura, who’s on her year abroad in Spain, will not only give me a well-earned holiday but some serious down-time. In fact, I’m ridiculously exicted about it. It will be lovely to see her and give me some time, free from career concerns, to relax in the Spanish sunshine. Having booked this trip for the end of June, I feel that gives me a little more time to keep pursuing more career options, looking for placements and jobs that start in July rather than the second I graduate.

I’m just so looking forward to the time when a extended, hardly-ever seen second-cousin asks me “So what are you doing after University then?”, I can quickly reply, “Oh, I’ve got a ………………. at this amazing company called ………………… doing ………………………………………………………………………………………..”

I guess for now, all I need to focus on is my degree and filling in those dreaded blanks.

In the words of my mum, “Everything’ll be fine in the end”.

My first ever post…

I was going to jump straight in, but that would mean ignoring the oh-so exciting fact that this is my first      ever post on my first ever blog… and hopefully the first of many.

I decided to start writing a blog for a lot of reasons, but mainly just because recently I have been having so many thoughts (read anxieties) that I felt the need to share them with the world or, at the very least, just write them down. I do have other, less moral reasons and that’s because all the graduate creative jobs that I’m applying to demand (or politely request) a decent online presence. Turns out directing them to your private facebook account, in which they can only see your name and current profile picture for fear of them seeing the disgraceful drunken photos that get uploaded every few weeks, isn’t quite enough to get you that interview.

You see, I want to work in Advertising. I’ve wanted it for a long time now. What’s frustrating is that I’m not quite sure where I fit in the industry. Years ago, I was sure I wanted to be a creative, specifically a copywriter. Then I was talked out of that career path by some pushy teachers, worried parents and a very caring but overly opinionated boyfriend. Now I’m older and hopefully know my own mind a little better, and am pretty sure that I want to be a creative again. It’s just that now I feel like I’m three years behind schedule.And I’ve started to doubt every decision I make, for fear that they are too important and I’m terrified of making the wrong one.

What all this confusion has meant is a lot of soul-searching, and by default a lot of arguing with my three and a half year boyfriend (the same one who I feel helped talk me out of following the creative industry in the first place, although he would of course disagree). I’ve started to question not just what I’m meant to do with my life, but who I am, how I feel, well  just everything really…

I’ve been at university for the past three years studying English. That means a lot of reading, a lot of socialising and a lot of fun, although all these things must be tempered by the knowledge that university  is about more than just getting a degree these days, and that you actually have to achieve something worth achieving during your time there. I’ve got involved with lots of societies, ranging from acting in plays to producing them, and setting up a synchronised swimming society to joining as a beginner in bellydancing. But there’s so much focus on doing something that I feel I’m losing out on the chance of just being someone – myself.

Maybe I’m getting too philosophical and need to tone it down a notch. It’s just hard to express something that can’t really be articulated (for any potential employers reading this, that of course does not apply to any advertising related work you may want me to do). Let’s take a question I was asked in an interview I had for DDB a couple of weeks ago (I’ll write another post all about this soon), which asked apart from what was on my CV under Interests & Activities, what else do I do for fun. And you know what, I couldn’t think of anything. I had to make something up on the spot and I think it showed. How sad is that – I feel so caught up in getting a degree, working for the money to fund it, making other unviersity experiences worthwhile and trying to find a graduate job so that it wasn’t all for nothing that I’ve lost all the things that actually made me interesting and employable before I started doing the degree in the first place.

I used to love reading; now, I can’t read for pleasure becuase I have to read for my course. I used to love writing; now, I spend too long writing essays and reading books to think about writing my own. I used to love sketching and scribbling down creative ideas for adverts as and when they came to me; now, being creative feels like it takes up too much time, time which I simply don’t have.

I know that every graduate will probably experience feelings like this. In fact, having watched one of my housemates break down about it not too long ago I can almost guarantee it, but it doesn’t make the fear feel any less real. I went to university to discover something about myself and really find out what being myself meant. I feel like I’ve just got further and further away from discovering that – but this blog represents the beginning of my journey to figuring out what that truly means, and finally realising who I am, what I’m meant to be and ultimately, whether any of that really matters.