a degree of success

I have just had my easter break when my parents came to visit. during my break I saw my twitter feed was full of my student friends saying they were busy revising for their upcoming exams. I wish them all good luck and for those of them who graduate welcome to the world of graduate unemployment a place which i know very well. I graduated in 2007 and have been unemployed for 4 out of the last 5 years

Last week the Citizens Advice Bureau launched a survey to find out about to find out about graduates and their experiences of struggling to find work- you can fill it in here www.adviceguide.org.uk/scotland/news/graduate_employment_survey_s.htm

The problem is not just the job centre which is not fit for purpose and should be turned into a careers service which helps everybody regardless of their qualifications. The major problem is that there are too many graduates. In the early 2000s there was a big push to get 50% of the population through university. The policy was not thought through properly because they should of seen the current graduate crisis coming and made sure the system can cope because it isn't doing so.

That may sound a snobbish thing to say and it is not my intention to be so. I believe if people want to go to university they should be supported to do so. But i would advice people to think about why they are going to university and for their chosen degree subject look at employment prospects. I wish i had done this. Are you going because everyone else is? do you really want 3 or 4 more years of essays. By the end of my degree i had lost my mojo and couldnt wait to finish so ended up with a 2:2 which has proven to be useless because there are so many graduates employers are after a 2:1 so if like me you have a 2:2 you face an even harder battle to find a job and really wonder why you bothered.

I went to university because I believed i would get a better job with a degree and I chose to do Politics and International Relations because it was sold to me as a flexible degree so i could do anything i wished. But upon graduation all of the jobs i looked at the employers wanted specific degrees e.g. business management or I.T. so i was stuck.

I should not have gone to university i failed all my exams in S6 and would probably put the fact I was accepted down to my disability to fill in a statistic. So the desire for the country to be educated a good one but it will only be successfull if the system is designed in a way that makes having a degree worth while and people should take time to think is that really what they want to do.