Rantings of a Graduate... Again!

Ever feel like your life is on pause? Or, at least, on slow mo? I do at the moment. I got this feeling while I was at uni. I felt like I wasn’t going anywhere in my life, that it had just stopped. The only thing that kept me going, was the notion (that was being forced into my brain everyday) that when I graduate, I will get some really great job, a job that I can make a career out of, and then the brakes of life would have been lifted and I would be rolling along nice and smoothly.

How wrong was I?

My life, is once again, and pretty much still is, stuck. The handbrake is firmly up, and it is stopping me from going anywhere. My final exam was in May. I got a job in August. I graduated in December. I’m still here at this same job. Job. That’s all it is. Nothing more, nothing less. I can’t make a career out of it, and I’m getting a little more minimum wage. People who work on my desk are mainly school leavers. You know what that implies – a degree is not needed for this job.

I know, I always moan about the situation I am in, and I apologise if I seem to be ungrateful. I am. It’s just that every day I wake up, disappointed that I went to university, got a degree in psychology, and I am not using it. I am trying, so hard to make it count. But I’m not getting anywhere. I’ve had a few interviews for some really great companies. The Civil Service, Penguin, Arup, J O Hasbro Investments. All amazing companies, in amazing London, with amazing prospects. But every bloody time, I get rejected, with the same “lack of experience” response, which is a load of crap, because I have more than enough to meet the job spec and beyond. I interview great apparently. Well, I should hope so, as I have had enough practice.
Like I said, I know I go on and on about it. But I really want to put across to whoever is reading out there, how hard it is to make something of yourself in life, with a degree. How hard it is to graduate in a country where there are thousands of graduates, and try and find a job to make the degree worthwhile. Graduate jobs have now changed their criteria from last year. 

 

Applying for the same schemes this year as I did last year, and they now ask that the candidate has over 330 UCAS points (AAB in A levels). This proves in itself just how unvalued the degree is these days, because so many people have one. As well as having a degree, you need good A levels. Something that I don’t have, and something that is absolutely pointless, because I know people who messed around in college, and got awful grades, but wanted to make something of themselves, so that managed to go to uni and get an amazing degree. I received 3 B’s at A levels, and a 2:1 degree. You would have thought that this was good enough? Apparently not.  

I want to do something with my life. I want a career. I want a job where I can utilize my degree.

Anyone out there that can help me?!

Any advice would be welcome!