As a working-class graduate, I now enter the world of employment. With my ‘golden ticket’ Cambridge degree, I stare wide eyed into the life ahead of me… and it feels like I’m staring down a double-barrelled shotgun.

My eyes focus on the red cartridge labelled ‘sell-out’ that sits a little too comfortably in the chamber. I know that, if released, I will be shredded by its shot pellets that explode in the form of ‘class traitor’ allegations. In my time at Cambridge, I have learned that the shotgun can be temperamental, that sometimes this shell fires erratically, that it requires very little to do so. Knowing this, I avoid anything that I think might result in a premature eruption: I stray away from law, I shun the idea of investment banking and finance, I rebuke any suggestion of entering the corporate world. I will not, I repeat, I will not cash-in my degree for financial gain. I think, having done all of this, that I am safe.

“I will not, I repeat, I will not cash-in my degree for financial gain”

Feeling an inch safer, my eyes flicker over nervously to the second chamber. There lies a blue cartridge labelled ‘failure’. This shell fires a little different from the first. The trigger for this second shot is a little less sensitive. It is often fired behind your back, when you’re not looking. Its buckshot more varied from the first breaking skin with the sounds of “What do you mean you’re not moving to London”, “[…] but you have a Cambridge degree”, “don’t you think that you’re settling a bit”, “It feels like after all that hard work you’re giving up”. I know this all too well.

This experience, one of staring down the barrel waiting for a shell to fire, is not unique to me. For people from working class backgrounds privileged to be socially mobile, much caution has to be applied to prevent the shotgun from firing. Graduating university can already be a difficult time but with challenges to identity cast, and threats of being labelled a ‘sellout’ or a ‘failure’ ever-looming, this process can become all the more arduous.

“With threats of being labelled a ‘sellout’ ever-looming, graduating can become all the more arduous”

A friend of mine– let’s call her Sarah – recently shared the news that following her Cambridge graduation she would be taking a job in a tech company. Sarah was not heading to the ‘bright lights’ of Google or Amazon, destinations she had been pushed towards in the understanding that they represent the pinnacle of industry success. Instead, she had chosen work at a smaller company, one where she found the work meaningful and where she had the ability to give back to her community. In doing so, Sarah felt that she was continuing to defy expectations but now not in an entirely positive way.

At a fundraising event, Sarah had been speaking with an investor who was befuddled by her decision to not trade her Cambridge degree for an ‘elite job’ telling her: “You go to Cambridge you can go to work for any company you wanted, why here?” Now, defying expectations did not mean exceeding what others thought possible but failing to live up to it. In avoiding the allegations of “class traitor,” in fact in becoming quite the opposite, she had been branded a “failure”.

So, what is the solution? How do you prevent the shotgun firing? Well, that’s the trick – it’s a catch-22, almost no matter what you do, one of these shells will fire. This is the paradox of social mobility.

As one of those that have ‘made it out’ we are expected to be a beacon of hope to be gazed out upon, without ever actually leaving. We are expected to give back but if we pursue a career in doing so, we are seen not as ‘giving back’ but as ‘giving up’. We are expected to be loyal to our social class, to our community and to simultaneously transcend it. As one of the lucky winners of the social mobility project we must grasp the opportunity with both hands but never see it through. If you do, the red shell will fire. If you don’t, you must face the blue.

I don’t propose to have the answers. I am still not sure what career I will choose. I still stare down the shotgun barrel and look for a path that reconciles these tensions. But importantly, as I do, I try to remember that even if the firing of these shells is inevitable, you don’t have to let them hurt you. Each of us are entitled to our own definitions of success. We must not let ourselves be confined by labels of ‘sell out’ or ‘failure’. As working-class graduates, where would we have gotten if we were scared of labels?