As we delve into Freshers week once again, welcoming bright and shiny new faces to our campus, we are mindful of those graduated only a few months ago, and how they might be feeling as they see friends, family, and students from all around the world start or return to uni for the adventure of a lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As an alumni of Queen\u2019s myself, I remember how I felt the first September after I had graduated. I remember the envy as I watched my friends in the year below gather for drinks in their new flats before jumping in a Value Cab and heading into town on a Tuesday night. Meanwhile, I was tucked up in bed at 10pm with the feeling that this was the beginning of the rest of my life, but not in a good way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What many forget to realise is that the first September post-graduation can be daunting.<\/em> You\u2019ve drank the last of the summer wine, you\u2019ve said goodbye to your friends leaving for a new term, and you\u2019ve ended up a position where you didn\u2019t know what the next year would hold for the first time in your life. You went from pre-school to school, school to secondary school, and secondary school to uni, each September bringing a year ahead of relative knowledge of where you would be and what you would be doing for the next year. And then you graduate. Talk about anti-climax! What now? The excitement of \u2018no more studying\u2019 life quickly wears off when the panic sets in; I\u2019m on my own now with money to pay back, no job, and no idea what I\u2019m going to do about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This may be easier said than done, but we\u2019re here to tell you, don\u2019t panic.<\/em> While it may not seem like it now, you have so much time! \u201cBut sure, Susie from French has a grad job already, she\u2019s getting 18k and has a boyfriend and has her life SORTED.\u201d And this is the problem! A wise man once said, \u201ccomparison is the thief of joy.\u201d Rule no.1, don\u2019t panic about what everyone else is doing. This time next year, Susie could be the jobless one and you\u2019ll be high-flying doing a job you really love and working up that career ladder, but honestly, it doesn\u2019t matter. Your twenties is an odd time of your life where everyone around you will be at totally different stages; the most important thing is that you do what\u2019s right for you, not what you think must be right because everyone else seems to be doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So let us tell you this; we are all working through an extremely challenging time in the world right now. People\u2019s plans have gone completely skew-whiff, global markets are up the left, and across the world, thousands of people\u2019s mental health has really taken a hit due to the uncertainty of it all. So you\u2019ve just graduated and you don\u2019t know what\u2019s next. I have good news, neither does anybody else! What can you do about it? Chill. <\/strong>Okay so you don\u2019t have the perfect job lined up yet- fine. Most people take years to find their dream job. You don\u2019t even know what the perfect job looks like yet? Also fine! Take some time doing a range of jobs to get you by, explore a range of options online, think about what you enjoy, about who you look up to, about what your skillset might lend itself to, you might just find inspiration in the strangest of places. Just don\u2019t rush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now remember those bushy-tailed freshers we were talking about earlier? Look at them and reflect on your time at uni. Be happy for them that they\u2019re about to embark on some really transformative years of their lives. Use their experiences to take a trip down memory lane and change your envious feelings into ones of nostalgia. Remember how excited you were to never have to look at a piece of coursework ever again? Think about that! Think of the opportunities ahead of you and the potential for loads of fun in the next 5 years. Don\u2019t think about the scary, think about the exciting. Look at the world with new eyes and think how you\u2019d like to play your part in it. Now are you so jealous of them standing in a 30 minute queue outside Filthy\u2019s?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Francesca<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As we delve into Freshers week once again, welcoming bright and shiny new faces to our campus, we are mindful of those graduated only a few months ago, and how they might be feeling as they see friends, family, and students from all around the world start or return to uni for the adventure of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,112],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-student-life","8":"category-students","9":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2019\/06\/pic-141.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6B2ST-99","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4535,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567\/revisions\/4535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/studentsunion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}