Driving into the Future: What Happens Next?

By Features Reporter Oisín Henebery

Crossroads have been causing me no end of trouble as of late. My mother has taken what can lightly be described as an obsessive interest in my learning to drive, and consequently, lectures about safely navigating the dreaded crossroads have grown in number and in force. Criticisms about my eagerness, and indeed even my willingness, to drive have abounded too. Each weekend at home welcomes new parental decrees on the importance of driving, its liberating effects, and its necessity. An opportunity is rarely missed to remind the general populace of my motoring vice. It remains, however, that these crossroads are not the ones about which I am most concerned. Rather, it is a metaphorical crossroads that is provoking most angst.

As a final year student, the cosy comfort of certainty has all but dissipated in every sense. Soon futile will be my answer to that old age question of ‘what is it you do?’ My status as a student will be revoked, and with it all guards from questions pertaining to salary, career projection, and job security will be lost.

You see, the title of student represents a sort of license, not necessarily to do anything in particular, but instead a license to shield oneself from interrogations on one’s work and career. Not that this license is unwarranted. It does take effort, consistency, and skill to be a student. University can be demanding, challenging, and stressful at times. Nonetheless, I would argue that my time here at UCC, for the most part, hardly represents what has been the most taxing period of my life. Indeed, I have rather enjoyed the exemption from taxes.

Now I am not here to begrudge my misfortune in graduating, that is to say the Dean of Law sealing my diploma is not such a bad thing. It is, after all, the accumulation of much work, learning and enjoyment. Nor am I here in search of a job that will curb the tide of questions about career and prospects (although if some editor happens by chance to be reading this article in the hunt for his next foreign correspondent, know that I am up for the task). Instead, I think recognition is needed for the extremely difficult and daunting task of what to do after graduation.

For me, I have not yet encountered a moment where I have been confronted directly with what it is that I want to do. In school, I knew the university was my next stop, the question of what it was I would study was of lesser significance. After all, university degrees rarely exclude career paths, albeit I let go of any notion of becoming a doctor. I told myself that university would be the chapter that would convince me of my purpose, that would point the way to my future. In retrospect, this was rather green, and indeed suspects that there is a right path, and that this path may open up easily before you. Nevertheless, I did not realise I could be quite so uncertain about what next September holds. That is if it does not hold repeat exams.

For a bit of context, I will be graduating with a degree in Law and French in May, with what I can only hope will be somewhat of a respectable mark. Although I study French, however, I decided that I would be best placed if I had a girlfriend who is German. Now one consequence of this is that I have contracted what can only be described as an impulsive desire to list, categorise, and enumerate ‘options.’ Hitherto having proved useful mostly for deciding on restaurants and films, I am deploying the technique once more in an attempt to decipher the possible routes upon which I might trail on graduating.

There is often a safe bet when it comes to plans post-graduation. As I write, firms are wrestling for their place in Devere Hall, ready to convince students to join their ranks by means as cunning and sinister as cupcakes, notebooks, and branded pens. Now I am often prepared to be persuaded, indeed advice on the whole is to be welcomed. However, I will have to go in with my guard up to avoid the magnetic lure of the icing buns. You see I am often times sceptical of these career fairs, where large firms come here to entice you to traineeships with their managing directors and engaging workspace rhetoric. While starting out a career with a large firm – be it in science, health, commerce, law or otherwise – offers a definitive pathway, a tangible career and what my parents like to call ‘financial security’ it is also a commitment to something that has not really struck me as my calling. Admittedly, that is of course a slight generalisation, in that starting out at a large firm can offer a diversity of careers later on, but it still represents a considerable restraint on what one might do. For many I’m sure, there is a daunting pressure to subscribe to such a firm, securing as they do what Jane Austen would have described as ‘prospects’. On the other hand, one might reasonably be cautious of pursuing something without the draw of something stronger than a cake, a prospective high salary, and a relation to one’s degree.

Another option naturally is to pursue a masters programme. For me, there were particular programmes which captured the attention, and warranted immediate letters of motivation. However, to say there was any connecting theme to this masters courses beyond the high costs would be inventive. This is really the challenge of masters courses and their selection, besides the obvious one of being accepted. The question of how precise the course should be, whether you go for one that specialises closely on a subject, or instead opt for a broader choice, is a daunting decision to make. It also makes the research far trickier. While masters involving subatomic particles, neuroscience, and business can be dismissed for obvious reasons, that still leaves quite a few others. And for every course for which you find the time to research, there are three that may go unearthed, and when one’s focus cannot be directed, it is easy to miss things. Like deadlines for example, these deadlines for masters have an infuriating habit of hiding away. After months of searching, you happen upon the ideal fit only to find that the applications office has closed up shop.

If not a traineeship nor a masters, you might too be considering a ‘year out’ during which one might be encouraged to ‘find oneself.’ Admittedly, for me, this is not a term I love, imagining as it does that there is a moment or series of moments where this happens, rather than its being a process that is constantly unfolding. Notwithstanding, one might find a year during which no major career choices are made quite welcome. I should note at this stage that a year out should probably not be too loosely defined, and I say this only on counsel. It does not, apparently, constitute idleness, lie ins and continued reliance. At least it ought not to. One might instead take to teaching and to travel, or perhaps charity work or championing will call out to you. Manual labour may murmur… quietly. But no, a year out would offer a plethora of opportunities that might be formative, informative and life changing. It can, however, frighten you out of your university-trained wits. There is always the concern that one will be left ‘forcing roads from nowhere going nowhere’, left with nothing guaranteed and the risk that time will be wasted.

Speaking as somebody who often needs some sense of progress, and of some idea of direction, albeit not a motoring one, I can appreciate the worry. The contrast between a valuable year of learning about yourself, traveling and working, and one that is not so valuable, is quite something. There is no certificate, no medal of achievement, no qualification, it is oneself who measures its worth. It is oneself too who determines its worth.

Alas it is true that there is no satnav telling you what exit to take at this crossroads. I am torn, you may too be torn, but rest assured as every mother has promised since the sixteenth century, ‘not to worry, the world is your oyster,’ so I am sure everything will be just fine.