Just a thought…
Posted by bencooper | Filed under News
As I’m drawing near to the end of my degree I’ve been thinking a lot about where I go from here. With the current economic crisis predicted to get much worse before it gets any better (my sincerest thanks to all those city slickers) employment for graduates looks pretty poor.
I’ve applied for a PGCE (for further education meaning I’ll teach in colleges, not secondary school) and I’m waiting to get the date of my interview. I’ve done a bit of language teaching and enjoyed the experience, except for a few difficult students. I like the idea of earning your keep by helping others in some way. My mum said it’s interesting that all three of her children are in, or moving towards, jobs that support and nurture others. My older sister is a substance abuse councillor, my little brother (also at uni) works with autistic kids and wants to make this his career after finishing his degree, and I’ll hopefully be moving in to teaching. No surprise that my parents are both nurses…
But a good friend recently wondered if I might be selling myself short by opting for teaching. He seemed to choke on the phrase but he suggested “thinking outside the box”. Although he knows I’ll find teaching rewarding (if the workload doesn’t kill me) but he thought I should think about alternative employment: research for the BBC, working at an arts centre etc.
I could see his point. It seems that, often from an early age you’re led to believe that there are a few jobs open for you and that choices you make at 14 (GCSE), 16(A-level) and 18(degree) decide your fate FOREVER! Don’t pick sciences at GCSE, well no A-level for you so you can forget about working with animals. That was my dream and a “helpful” careers advisor at my minor public school ground it out of me because, although I was good at biology, I was mediocre at chemistry and piss poor at physics and maths.
So here I am about to finish an English Literature degree. English teacher then…God damn it! I’ve become a cliché. No actually the cliché for an arts grad now is several years of temping followed by a team leader position at a call centre. All while writing a novel/putting together an installation/making a short film.
But what else is open…oh well you could try a graduate scheme and slowly lose your soul as a manager trainee at Sainsbury’s. Don’t like that? How about admin? No? PR? No…oh well. Guess it’s call centres for you then.
But there are a million ways to make your money, we’re just driven down the route of teacher, manager, doctor, lawyer (if you went to a school like mine). Because, let’s face it you wouldn’t want a job that doesn’t swallow your life would you?
Of course I’m spewing a lot of bile here, and I don’t mean to denigrate those who do devote a lot of time to their careers. It’s their choice and I respect that. Thing is a lot of people don’t seem to have a choice. The government gives lip service to flexible working whilst simultaneously wanting to force new mothers back to work as soon as possible.
They should be raising their kids! Motherhood is the single most amazing thing in THE WORLD. It’s something I’ll never get to experience, except by proxy, but I recognise that the time a mother devotes to her child is instrumental in the rest of that tiny, new life. And if that new mum then wants to have flexible hours, well she can request it and get it. Hopefully it won’t damage her career but who knows, office politics are a strange thing.
If you’re not a parent…well you can try. Companies wouldn’t want relaxed, more productive staff who are absent less though (qualities proven to exist in much higher frequency with flexible workers). Instead they would rather force people to work five days a week, as many hours as possible (forget a cap on the working week like those lazy but much happier and more productive Europeans), take as little holiday as possible and refuse to pay the first few days of sickness…
I’ve digressed slightly…
I think the main argument I had, which got lost in my anger, is that there are many ways to earn a living- none of which should dominate your life UNLESS YOU MAKE THAT CHOICE FREELY.
They say time is money. Actually time is life. And you only get one.
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