Hugh

Sitting in Guildford Wetherspoons, clutching my 4th unlimited tea refill, I realised that I had made a strategic error.

I was there with some friends from school. Two were on leave from the major consultancy and important defence firm at which they were doing their years in industry, and where they would probably return after a final year at university. A third was telling me that he had finally secured a job doing something too complicated for a humanities student like me to understand, for some people vaguely connected with the government.

“I laughed at the pain in my history-loving friend’s eyes as he was forced to forsake these delights for calculus and combinatorics”

It was as these apprentice corporate weapons spoke that I realised where I had gone wrong. Studying the arts had seemed like such a good idea when I dropped all semblance of STEM from my curriculum in the wake of GCSEs, ignoring my father’s anguished pleas as I consigned my Casio scientific calculator to the back of the draw where broken headphones and superannuated charging leads dwell.

While my drinking companions had been in the Maths classroom, I had been learning about Baldwin IV (Leper King of Jerusalem and all-round top bloke) and watching Andrew Marr talk about the making of modern Britain. I laughed at the pain in my history-loving friend’s eyes as he was forced to forsake these delights for calculus and combinatorics. I had taken the easy route, and paid no price.

Now, however, I was facing what looked suspiciously like consequences for my choices. After two-and-a-half years of essay permacrisis, brutal supervisor feedback, and eccentric lecturing, I was facing unemployment, while my friends had won the greatest prize of all: working in London in their twenties. As I sat in Spoons, I had a vision of that future. I saw the houseshare in Zone 3, the air-conditioned office, the post-work pints in the June sun on a cobbled street outside an ancient pub in the City of London. I saw youth and disposable income in the greatest city on Earth.

“I was facing unemployment, while my friends had won the greatest prize of all: working in London in their twenties”

Later, I saw the promotion, the office of one’s own, the company card, the unshared flat in Zone 2. I saw satisfaction at being a productive member of society. I saw that maybe taxes are too high. I saw the marriage and the children and the move to Surrey and the cycle beginning anew. Then the vision darkened. I saw my own future. The worthless English degree. The rejected applications. The unanswered emails. The move back home. I saw the shame in my parents’ eyes as I insisted that my podcast would take off “any day now”. I saw my friends’ pity turn to disgust as I tried to tell them about how close I came to getting that newspaper grad scheme, back when I was at Cambridge, thirty years ago.

Reader, don’t listen to the siren song of the humanities enthusiasts. They will tell you that office life is boring. They are wrong. Sometimes it is mildly interesting. There is often free food. And you will escape the spiral into unemployment, penury, and despair. Get out while you still can. Apply for Management Tripos.

Emily

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any Cambridge English grad, in possession of a degree, must be in want of a job. Unfortunately, in this current economy, it is also a truth universally acknowledged that a good job is very much not in want of an English student. Choosing Donne over Deloitte doesn’t always lead to the easiest employment path post-graduation. It may even lead you, as it has done me, straight into the familiar arms of a Master’s course.

“No panic Master’s here, unfortunately. This decision has been embarrassingly premeditated”

Really, I should be kicking myself. While my friends are apartment-searching for Zone 3 pads to live in while embarking on their first few steps up the corporate ladder, I am weighing up whether or not I can justify writing my thesis in Children’s Literature on Jacqueline Wilson. Put a hundred PR interns for the Tory party in a room with 100 typewriters and they wouldn’t be able to write a better stereotype of the ‘chronically unemployed English student’. At least they managed to pass the stupid personality quizzes and the two rounds of interviews.

Despite this, I’m not splitting hairs too much. At the end of the day, for all its chaotic deadlines, needlessly stressful referencing formatting, and decision to make Tragedy a compulsory paper, I have really fallen in love with my degree, at least enough to want to do it for another year. No panic Master’s here, unfortunately. This decision has been embarrassingly premeditated.

I also don’t agree with the idea that English is unemployable. I could spend the rest of this article rattling off anecdote after anecdote of friends who studied English who are now in “good jobs”. But why should I have to justify the existence of my degree by how much it appeals to the likes of JP Morgan? If going into investment banking or hedge funds (which, disappointingly, have very little to do with actual hedges) are the only ways to be “successful” or a “productive member of society”, then I am very worried for our future. Success should not be measured by a house in Surrey (especially because it’s Surrey of all places. At least pick somewhere interesting for crying out loud), or by salaries, but rather by our own personal goals.

“Why should I have to justify the existence of my degree by how much it appeals to the likes of JP Morgan?”

It probably comes as no surprise that I, the northern English student who cried in every Maths lesson and is now embarking on a Master’s in Children’s Literature, have no desire to go into the world of investment banking, or even to live in London. And let’s be honest, they certainly don’t want the likes of me trying to set the interest rate. Sure, I’m very tempted by the office life shown to me in The Devil Wears Prada, and I know all too well that academia is a dying field. But one more year studying something that I love in a new city before trying (and, let’s be honest, probably failing) to get a job can’t hurt too much.

Does the age-old adage “money can’t buy happiness” wear slightly thin when you consider that it’s probably more comfortable to cry yourself to sleep at night in a Zone 2 apartment with a stable job (and holiday benefits!), rather than some dingy flat on a student budget? Possibly. But at the end of the day, I have a very long time to consider selling out. Maybe next year, deep into writing my thesis and facing the inevitability of unemployment, I’ll re-read this article and curse my foolishness. But for this English student, at least currently, there’s another truth universally acknowledged: I don’t regret a thing.