Community: Real Life

Coping with graduation


Gemma

Gemma is a 21-year-old glamour-puss fashion graduate who's waiting for her first big break in the fashion and beauty industry.
Entry: 4

Reality bites after Gemma graduates, but things soon begin to look up.

There's something quite soul-destroying about going back home after graduating from university. It feels like I have this massive sign over my head saying 'failure'. The truth is (as people keep saying) it takes a good 12 months for most graduates to get back on their feet, and everyone does fill-in jobs before finding something related to the subject they studied. I'm not alone in having a degree and doing shop work; most of my graduating class are in a similar position. I just wish like them I'd had the guts to stay in London and not come running home to mummy and daddy.

The real killer is that almost all degree courses (except mine, it seems) are now four years long and all my old friends are still away at university. I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself knowing I have to work weekends while they're getting drunk at their respective university campuses.

The one friend who graduated at the same time as me is off travelling the world with her boyfriend and now probably in some remote Pacific island, drinking over-proof rum and collecting shells on the beach. So I'm all on my lonesome. I've made good friends at work, but it's not the same as having friends you've known all your life living nearby.

"Luckily, I'm an eternal optimist, and there are a few good things on the horizon. I've got some fashion-based work coming up (cue fanfare music and hurrahs all around)."

Luckily, I'm an eternal optimist, and there are a few good things on the horizon. As well as getting free beauty products sent to me every month as the result of being such a good reviewer (apparently), I've got some fashion-based work coming up (cue fanfare music and hurrahs all around). Catherine, a friend from my course who I lived with throughout the final year, has invited me down to London next weekend to do some styling at a press event. We'll be working with one of the 'celeb stylists' who used to be on The Big Breakfast, and this event combines my two 'specialist' writing subjects - teenagers and beauty. It was lovely of her to think of me for it. It's also a chance to see my old friends in London (and remind myself of what I'm missing).

On top of that is the best news, coming at a time when I need it most. I've landed a paid assignment that should last the next three months and hopefully longer. I love the fact that this is an online assignment, because I can rub it in the faces of anyone who has ever called me a computer geek. Every writing job I've been offered has been as a result of my website, Catwalk Queen, so all those times I've had my mum screaming at me to 'stop wasting your time on that computer' have finally paid off.

Things are looking up!


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