Tonight is the only night of the year when it is OK for children to mug their neighbours for sweets and when you can pass a werewolf in the street and not bat an eyelid. The pumpkins are glowing and the fireworks are fizzing: Happy Halloween.
Instead of joining the festivities I am sat at my 'desk' (in other words the kitchen table that I have claimed for my own in my shared flat) surrounded by piles of notes, elbow deep in research for my university final major project. You think ghosts and goblins are scary? This is scary.
At the moment thinking about my final project feels like standing at the bottom of a mountain in a pair of flipflops. But even scarier than the thought of how I will climb over all this work is the thought of what I will do when it is over. After three years of study I will have come to the end of what has at times felt like a trek, but really it has just been the warm-up lap before a marathon.
When I graduate I need to get a job, but the more I hear about graduate unemployment the more this prospect terrifies me. Especially when I talk to more and more young graduates who are working for free or who have had to give up on their dreams (and careers that they have trained for) because they can't afford to not to get paid for their time. This is why I am continuing to investigate and campaign against unpaid internships: because I know the thought of graduating and finding a job sends shivers up the spines of most young people, and because I don't think it is fair that wealth should be the real USP that you need to get ahead.
I am going to a fancy dress Halloween party on Friday and had been struggling with costume ideas. I now know what I'm going to go as. An unemployed graduate.
Libby
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