I’m finally graduating from university this Thursday! Thank goodness that’s over. It’s been a long journey – but was it worth it?
I’m going through what probably most people around my age go through, which I am calling a mid-midlife crisis (perhaps there is a proper term for this, I haven’t bothered to look it up). I’m done with school and now I need to move on in my life, but to where?
I still feel like I don’t know what to do with myself. Obviously get a job, but what job, and how am I going to get it? Of course, there’s my dream job, which is a writer, a novelist specifically, and I am working towards that (I’ve written a book and am now in the process of trying to get that published, which will no doubt be a very long process) but the pessimist in me says I need a back-up plan, and frankly, nothing else really compares to the dream. There are other things in the publishing world I’d be interested in, such as becoming an acquisitions editor, but I have very little idea of how I would go about finding something that would set me on that path. I have some editing experience, but perhaps not enough at the moment, and I don’t particularly know where to look for something like that. Of course, I’ll be starting my new job with my current company as I talked about in a previous post (tomorrow, actually), and I’m hoping that will help launch me in a career direction of some sorts, but for now it’s still only a pretty limited part-time gig.
And frankly, I feel that university was not the most useful way of preparing myself for the next necessary stages in life. A college, job-specific program still seems the better option to me these days. I went to university mostly because my mother insisted it was a life requirement, but in this day and age, I’m seriously beginning to doubt that. University’s simply not enough these days, which sucks (and I realllllly don’t want to have to go back to school, because, frankly, I hated school. With a passion). Sometimes it feels like a university degree is the equivalent of what a high school degree got you fifty or so odd years ago. But I suppose, only time will tell me whether or not my university degree will prove in any way useful to my future.
I did quite well in university but I certainly didn’t enjoy it and I don’t think I learned anything super practical that can be applied in a world other than academia, which I don’t plan on immersing myself in. So what can I say, university, it’s not for everyone. If it went well for you, congrats! But I’m still deciding.
So now I get to go and get all dressed up in a fancy robe and hat and walk across a stage to claim my degree. Whoopie.
violetsams 