This post has been a long time coming. It’s one that I really felt I needed to write. It’s a ‘personal life advice’ sorta post, so apologies in advance! I’m not normally one for passionate posts and if you ask my friends and people that I know I am the last person they would turn to for advice. It’s not that I don’t care, I really do, but I am atrociously rubbish at this stuff (Picture Mark Corrigan from Peep Show awkwardly hugging someone and thats sort of me…) So this is a post and a leap (well maybe just a small hop!) into something new in every sense of the phrase… (This will all make sense I promise!)

As I write this I’ve just had a package through my door. It’s one I’ve been waiting for, but also dreading like a dentists appointment. It’s the ominous official graduation photos…

If this is your first visit to my page and you haven’t read any of my previous posts you won’t know that I recently graduated. I majored in History of Art combined with a minor in Fine Art at Oxford Brookes University and I graduated in June. I loved learning both about my chosen topic but also about life and who I am as a person. The three years you spend away from your home and everyone you know can totally change you as a person, and how you react to that and how you channel and utilise this to your advantage can be the making or ruin of your entire experience.

I had my fair share of ups and downs (a lot of downs, A LOT…) which created a lot of incredible memories but also a lot of sleepless nights spent up until 3am finishing assignments or weeping down the phone to my boyfriend (long distance relationships suck, but that is a whoollllee other post…). But I wouldn’t want to change any of it for the world, including the hideous flatmates and the crippling debt, if it was any different I wouldn’t be where I am right now and I wouldn’t be able to appreciate what a great place I am in right now.

It wasn’t until I was faced with those dreaded graduation photos that it all came flooding back in waves about how far I’ve come but also about what lies ahead. At first the panic sets in with the thoughts of “what the hell am I doing with my life right now?” which really aren’t helped by the constant bombardment of questions that you face like “so what are you doing next?” and “how do you hope to use your degree?” But these feelings of sheer terror after you finish something so life consuming as University are perfectly healthy and also bloody good for you! You’ve just spent three years working your socks off and are totally entitled to have no bloody idea what you want to do and to take that time to completely take in what you’ve just been through and to evaluate what you’ve experienced.

I’ve been lucky enough to carry working as a gallery assistant in a job I started through my second year studying. It has been the perfect job for me coming out of University and perfectly suited to utilise my degree as well as expanding my art history knowledge, but this easy transition from student to adult life has still absolutely terrified me, since when was council tax so expensive and bills so bloody un-exciting to pay? This muddle of stumbling through adult life after student life is all part of the life experience that you need to figure out who the hell you are and what you want in life. Don’t let other people steer you into something you don’t want to do and don’t let other people make you feel bad for taking the time to figure your life out and have the well deserved rest from those life changing three years you’ve just been through.

Love,

Molly Catherine x