Will It All Be Worth It?

I have been fairly negligent of my blog these past few weeks, mainly due to the excitement/stress of starting my 2nd year of university. Enjoying freshers week all over again, and trying to settle into the new house, which has been challenging at times (we tried to put a T.V bracket on our wall and it literally crumbled away, this was a few days after the break in - but that's another blog).

I have been eager to come back to uni since about 2.5 days into the summer holidays, but as I look ahead not only to my second year but to life beyond studying it begs the question: is it all going to be worth it? Every time I open a newspaper, there's another article ranting about rising fees (thanks for your proposal Lord Browne), and lack of jobs available, condemning graduates to years of debt and unemployment, which doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. Although I'm realistic enough to know that I probably won't stroll out of my lecture hall and into the vogue editors office, I'm really hoping that the world of work isn't as bleak as those who are already in it, make it out to be.

With the average student graduating with debt in excess of 20,000, you'd be forgiven for thinking that people are put off going to uni, but it seems that the British like debt and binge drinking more than I thought because between 1999 - 2009, the number of students has risen by 44%. But this in itself creates problems: degrees are like designer bags, the more people that have one, the less valuable they become. The reality is that so many people graduate these days, that an employer is no longer impressed by a degree. Hence where work experience comes in - a degree means next to nothing without it - but even unpaid work making tea and sorting post can be hard to come by.

One of the main reasons that I am able to laugh at my abysmal financial situation and my dull, unfulfilling and underpaid part time job is this assumption I have, that it won't always be like this. And despite all the negative press surrounding graduate job prospects, it's an assumption I am going to hold on to until I am proved otherwise. So here's hoping that the big bad world of work isn't as bad as they say, and that I graduate with more than a mountain of debt and a 3 year hangover.