After four long years, I have finally graduated from university. It feels weird like it hasn’t even really happened. I think I felt the same way after I finished secondary school too. You know, you just spend so much time in a place doing the same things all the time and you get used to it.
Even though it still doesn’t feel like it has been four years since I started university, it feels like it wasn’t that long ago that I was going there for the first time and I was nervous. I remember making a YouTube video about it actually, I just talked about some things I was nervous about when starting uni. Not that I really had anything to worry about.
Though it did take me a while to come out of my shell at uni, I mean you’re thrown into a new place full of new people and don’t really know what to be doing. I was lucky that I still had some friends from secondary school to hang around with at the beginning so I didn’t feel totally lonely. We didn’t do the same course but it was nice to see them outside of class.
After a few months, I think I settled in pretty well though, I was living at home so I had a routine of getting up every day to go to uni and coming home. This didn’t last long though because the year after that I decided to move out.
It was a big step to move out for uni. I’d never had that independence before. Though in all honesty, I think I took to living away from home pretty well. It was nice to have my own space, though I shared it with two other people. I was lucky in the flatmates I had chosen as they were pretty chill, we respected each other’s privacy and we never really had any issues living together.
I’m glad I stuck with living with a small number of people, I don’t know how I would have dealt with living with four or five strangers. My first two flatmates were my friends when one of my friends moved out, I lived with someone I went to secondary school with. We weren’t friends but we were friendly enough that it wasn’t too weird to be living with them.
After that, it was just me and my uni friend. Our third flatmate went to study abroad for a year and we didn’t really want another flatmate. Again, this was great, I definitely couldn’t have asked for better flatmates.
Along with uni I also had a placement year, this was another thing I was nervous about because I had never had a job before then. I was new to the application and interview process but it wasn’t so bad. It was just about working hard and proving you were good enough, though it was still hard to believe I even got a job, especially when I had only been coding for two years and didn’t have other experience.
Luckily placement year went really well. Again I was thrust into a brand new environment that I had never been in before. It was actually not so bad settling into a job, it got me into a routine which was more than I had at uni, plus regular pay was pretty great.
Then came final year and it was a tough one. Suddenly I had more work than I had ever had before and deadlines every other week, it was a crazy time. I definitely felt like giving up a lot but I feel like that’s natural, in fact, I made a lot of friends in final year purely because we all bonded based on our lack of motivation and how stressed we all were.
But thankfully me and everyone else hung in there, worked hard and were able to graduate a few weeks ago.
Graduation day was a strange day for me, I mean I knew what to expect because I went to my boyfriend’s graduation ceremony the year before and mine was the same. But instead of watching him have his name called and walking across the stage it was my turn. I had the same concerns as everyone else that day, mainly just the fear of tripping on stage…
Luckily that didn’t happen and everyone made it across the stage in a timely manner. But it was still weird to actually be wearing the gown and getting all my photos taken and things like that, it just didn’t feel like it was the end. It still doesn’t feel like it now.
I mean it was still a good day and it was great to celebrate with friends and family. I guess I was just waiting to feel something super different. Sure I feel relieved now that I don’t have any more uni work to do and everything paid off. I think I felt more when I got my results to when I actually graduated. I guess because by results day I knew that I didn’t have to worry anymore, I got my degree classification and I knew it was going to be fine, so it was just plain sailing until graduation.
But now that’s university is over and I am on my way to being a ‘full adult’ it feels weird. I still feel like I’m too young or not ready or something. I’m definitely still getting used to the idea that I will now be working for the rest of my life. Something that I used to dread when I was in school. Though I guess before I thought it was because I was going to end up doing something I hated, thankfully the university choice I made was a good one and I enjoy what I do.
I think it’ll be an adjustment going into work full-time. Before, when I was on placement I knew that it wasn’t going to be forever and I was going back to uni, but now? It’s just me going to work and nothing else. I know that my whole life will not only revolve around work but it will become the next big part of it.
It’s kind of scary but at the same time, I think it’ll be good. I am looking forward to moving out into my own space, though this time without flatmates, I am looking forward to being able to spend time after work doing things I wasn’t always able to do during uni because I was too busy, and I excited to see what comes next.
So that’s where I am in life now, a university graduate, a young adult moving up in the world.
And so yeah, I guess I just wanted to make a blog post to reflect a little bit. I mean I don’t think I can really capture in one blog post how my four years at university were but I guess this gives you a little bit of insight, and if you have been following me on Twitter all this time then you probably got a good idea of what uni life was actually like for me lol.
Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed reading, and I promise I will be back with a regularly scheduled book review or TV show blog post soon 😛
~ Courtney x
Courtney's Blog 