Saturday 2 May 2009

Welcome to the start of the rest of my life

Graduating in November was a surprising shock. I knew that the end was near of course but as it got closer and closer the work load increased so it became easy to forget. Now twenty-three I realise that I am already knocking on the door of the mid twenties and while this may seems nothing to someone reading this blog I have set myself a goal that I would be clearly on my career path and hopefully had created a product, service or business by thirty. The last four years has flown by and I bet the next seven years will also. I put myself under this unnecessary pressure because the past has shown me that the only way I achieve good things is if I push myself. I look back now and I have realised I have always pushed myself for the benefit of myself, obvious you may say, but I realise now I have left University that there are a lot of people in the same boat who have pushed themselves with the intention to impress others, namely their parents. Now they have ticked the box of education what now for them? Many that I have talked to are in limbo, they have a degree under their belt but are suddenly realising they may have been going down the wrong path. They also no longer have the pressures of expectations from others as they have already been met; the foundations have already been made. Some are ‘travelling’, probably for the second time, some are thinking about enrolling on yet another degree and others have taken the plunge into a job that is nothing to do with their studied degree. Getting back to me, the reason I am happy to say that four years ago I knew where I would be in regards to my career now is because I set myself goals and had large amounts of self drive. My parents would have always been happy with me taking a more mundane job so I could never say they have been pushy, though my dad often uses reverse psychology to get me to prove him wrong. I now am working professionally as a Software Engineer while also working on projects in my spare time that hopefully I will be able to take further once this recession is over. I have already dodged two redundancy rounds and every day of work brings me opportunity to learn about work politics and generally how to behave and interact with my colleagues. I have to remind myself what I idealistic situation I am now in and that I am doing something I have chosen to do, not a lot of graduates can say that at this point of time, which maybe is a sad fact of our education system.