The graveyard of everything that should have been (or, how it feels to be a 2020 graduate)

This time last year I was having the time of my life. I'm not exaggerating when I say it was the happiest I've ever been. It was a month into what I was pretty sure was going to be my favourite year of university. Every day I had something fun to do (Writing Society, orchestra, parties, pub quizzes, seminars) and everybody I met were so smart and kind and funny. Literally the only thing I had to complain about was when my eyes hurt after reading one too many boring academic articles.

But then, when we had barely hit the halfway mark, everything was snapped away from us besides ebooks and Zoom links. My one year of being a student in the favourite city of my childhood (my first school is wedged between the two campuses) has gone. Now I just see posts from people I had weirdly profound conversations with at the bus stop at 2am and watch how they're moving onto new things and new places.

When I was in second year, I was terrified of becoming an unemployed graduate. If I'd met a boggart, I'm pretty sure it would have turned into an interviewer asking about a gap in my CV. And so I did everything I could to avoid that. In February I thought I had succeeded: I had a little job at one of the country's largest heritage organisations. I had it secured until this December so I knew I could keep my peace of mind while I worked on my dissertation before applying for Serious Business graduate roles in time for the new year recruitment rush.

You probably already know where this is going. That job was the first to go in what has become a long line of job losses and cuts in the arts and cultural sector.

I started this blog to try to make up for all the things I would have done in the other timeline (and also because I've always wanted to do something like this). But by late July it was very obvious that I needed to pull my socks up and finish my dissertation, even though online uni had sort of made me despise the whole thing. Around the same time, I started a new job that I got in a scramble to replace the one I'd lost. Unfortunately it does markedly less for my graduate CV but everything for my anxiety levels. But, hey, I should just be grateful to have anything at the moment, right?

A while ago, I asked for advice about graduating this year. I wanted to know if employers will be more empathetic towards applicants being out of work and what we could do if that was the case. The answer was that employers would be understanding but they would be looking for people who could show they had done something productive during this time. That sounded reasonable, so I asked for some ideas for what we could do instead of work experience. They said we could do an online course, brush up our CVs and get a 'key worker' or a similar job.

Let's just say I was not impressed by the implication that, in their mind, my job is basically the same as being unemployed. Would they like to try my eleven-hour shift patterns? How about carrying a room service tray up two flights of stairs at 8am without spilling coffee everywhere? Yes, I'm far away from the student loan repayment threshold, but that doesn't mean that minimum wage is minimum effort.

This post was inspired by The Real Graduate, someone who I spent two terms thinking was the best student on our course. I really appreciate her honesty and realness. This is a time when we only share our highpoints that represent 1% of our lives, from Instagram stories to LinkedIn profiles. I think it could be getting even worse now as we struggle to present ourselves in the best light as we enter the 'real' world. We show our lockdown successes, like Isaac Newton theorising during the plague[1]. We don't show our desperation and our loneliness and our mourning.

So I decided to add my own honesty. If I'm not working, I'm worrying about coronavirus and staring at the numbers and trying to guess what the heck will happen next. I probably shouldn't admit this, but I've sort of given up trying to find a graduate job for now. I don't even have anything self-deprecating to say about it; I just want to avoid a mental breakdown.

Graduating in 2020? 1/5 would not recommend. Quality has severely dropped compared to last year. Spoke to management but they were just this spikey thing that hissed at me. Won't be coming back.

[1] Though last time I checked the plague was in 1665 and Newton's first publication was in 1687 but Richard Dawkins says that's not important