Steve went up to uni to get his results the day before I was due to get mine. Annoying, as he finished his exams a week before me so he shouldn’t be allowed to get his results before me too! :P
I said to Steve that I would cover for him on the St John duty he was meant to be on. As the uni fairly often has ‘hiccups’ when it comes to technology and internet stuff, I spent the morning obsessively checking my student record page using the internet on my phone in case they slipped up and released the marks early.
I’d checked at least 20 times, but still no joy. Getting slightly bored, I decided to scroll down the page a bit further and look at my AS- and A-level results. There, casually hanging out underneath results that I’d long since stopped caring about, was my degree classification...
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| Arghhhh, there it isssss! |
By the time I got home uni had emailed round (obviously realising that some people were clever and had found out their degree results already, which the department hadn’t intended to happen) saying they were going to release all the rest of the results a day early. Somehow the thought of getting results for my exams made me more nervous than getting my final degree result haha.
However, as is always the way when you’ve been waiting for something, getting my exam and project results didn’t go according to plan – the student record system crashed and I couldn’t log on. Argh!
Later on that evening though, I did finally manage to get my results. Here’s the damage:
- Marine Vertebrate Conservation exam (the one I thought I’d done really well in): 71%
- Animal Life-History Diversity and Conservation exam (the one I was sure I’d completely messed up): 68%
- Africa Field Course exam: 64%
- Wildlife Forensics exam: 55%
- Research project: 70%
I find it quite funny (and very reflective of my mental state!) that my exam results got progressively worse with each exam I did. Slightly ashamed of the 55% one, as that’s the lowest mark I’ve ever got for a uni exam, but the rest were ok. I was chuffed to bits that I got a 1st for my project (albeit on the borderline of the 1st/2:1 boundary!), because I put an awful lot of work into it and would have been so gutted if I didn’t do very well.
Overall, I got 68% for my degree, so I missed a 1st by 2%. So annoying, as I only just missed it and I now blend in with the masses (some of whom may have only got 61%, yet we still have the same degree class...), but hopefully my other transferrable skills (such as first aid/St John) will make me stand out from the crowd when it comes to applying for jobs.
Speaking of which, I now feel like it’s time to start in earnest with the job application process. I don’t really want to apply for jobs, as I still don’t know what I want to do for the rest of my life, and all the things I like the look of are all unpaid voluntary positions, which as cool as the positions may be aren’t going to pay for me to live :(. I also want the chance to enjoy my last summer of proper freedom where I feel like I can get away with only doing what I want – after this summer I’ll always feel obliged to be working, and that any gaps of unemployment in my CV will look really suspicious and reflect badly on me :\. That being said I’ve just applied for a part-time job at Hobbycraft haha (getting to play with craft stuff all day and getting staff discount, what’s not to love? :P), so that will get me a bit of money while I work out what I really want to do as my career.
So, the end of uni was not the triumphant and amazing experience I was expecting it to be, but I definitely feel happier now than I have done in a long time, now that the weight of assignments and exams is off my shoulders. But now the pressure of job hunting and The Rest of My Life is beginning to bear down on me and I’m beginning to feel ever so slightly terrified again...
Many congratulations and enjoy the final days of student-life before boring things like jobs ruin the fun!
ReplyDelete"So, the end of uni was not the triumphant and amazing experience I was expecting it to be, but I definitely feel happier now than I have done in a long time, now that the weight of assignments and exams is off my shoulders. But now the pressure of job hunting and The Rest of My Life is beginning to bear down on me and I’m beginning to feel ever so slightly terrified again..."
ReplyDeleteThere's no right or wrong way to react to the end of uni. There's many aspects in conflict with each other, the sheer relief at no more deadlines, evil lecturers, all-night study sessions, the sadness at realising that you might end up growing apart from the friends you've made and, sadly, the fear of tumbling headfirst into a somewhat intimidating graduate jobs market.
And there's no easy answer to that. The best I can tell you is to feel that fear, acknowledge it, then move past it. And whatever you do, don't let the media convince you that there's no hope. It's tough, true, but tough is a very different thing to impossible. You have a degree, so you've already proved you're no stranger to hard work.
And it's natural to feel scared of "the rest of your life" because you don't know what's coming. Up 'til now, it's been fairly predictable. You know where you stand at university, you know how you're doing. With graduation, that's gone. That takes some getting used to but I promise that you do get used to it and it becomes familiar, natural.