The big, bad world...

by Akilah Russell

Other than being a student, there is no other time in your life when you can roll out of bed at midday (equipped with a massive migraine from your hangover) to skulk out of your room - in the house paid with money you didn’t necessarily work for - and not be considered to be a wasted member of society.

As stereotypically hedonistic as that description of student life may sound, it is a known fact that once the confetti settles from the graduation ceremony “the real world” that your parents so kindly warned you about, finally begins to settle in.

That extra student loan money begins to dry up, and the reality that it is not actually ‘‘free money’’ registers. Combined with the closure of your comfy halls doors, is enough to be a shock to anyone’s system!

And now as the end of the final term approaches, the next batch of freshly baked graduates are all set to start their first lap in the job rat race, in a time of economic crisis and epidemic unemployment.

Now before you stamp on your graduation gown, and use your diploma as a coaster, you will not be the first to ask yourself the rhetorical question: ''What do I do now?''

Truth is. Nobody knows.

We have all heard about the guy that ‘‘made it’’ and is now a millionaire without a degree. Or that person who left you and walked straight into a six-figure salary job the day after graduating.

However, there is no right or wrong approach to life after university – and there is some comfort in that fact alone.

For the first time the heavily beaten track of what one is ‘‘supposed’’ to do in life - e.g. school, college, and of course university; making this the most exciting time in life, rather than the most daunting.

Indeed it is hard to ignore the scaremongering of the headlines that tell you that you wont get a job and your degree actually means nothing. However, it is not all doom and gloom in the big, bad world. Enjoy your first taste of life beyond the walls of formal education, and enter the school of life with confidence.

After all, leaving university may be an end to an era, but not the end of the world!