It’s on the tip of everyone’s tongues: grad scheme season. Shaking the dust off your CV in preparation for the careers fair is daunting. Like many, I had dreams of becoming a bohemian creative, yet the DMs on Handshake and LinkedIn from consultancy firms occasionally cause my piety to waver. Let’s be frank, the prospect of earning £65k and having a swanky London flat is undeniably alluring.

Apparently, it’s not just in our heads: graduates are now entering the most challenging job market since ’08. Facts like this provoke existentialism. Should I have just picked a STEM degree and become a tech bro?

“Should I have just picked a STEM degree and become a tech bro?”

Money can’t buy you happiness, as the saying goes. Except, according to scientists, it can. Health and happiness are, unfortunately, linked to being able to financially support yourself. Yet, studies have shown that income beyond covering the basics (rent, food, electricity, water, tax, etc) does not vastly affect quality of life. In short, if you can pay the bills and have enough money saved for disasters, your happiness will not be greatly affected if you earn £33k or £100k. But how do we even get to that 33k? I am going to look at our options and find out once and for all whether you need to ‘sell out’ and get that corporate job.

Dream option: The Courtesan

If you have a family that can financially support you whilst you make your dreams a reality, then lucky you. Enjoy your life creating art, drinking absinthe and merrily rolling along.

For the rest of us, I have looked at some options on how to make the post-graduation abyss more comfortable.

Option A: Weekend Warrior (get a corporate job)

This is a no brainer for lots of people. I’m thinking of the Econ students and the NatScis of the world. Computing graduates from Cambridge could earn around £56,000 just one year after graduating, putting them £25,687 above the national average. If you’re a humanities student, hope is not lost. You could become a solicitor or a consultant. Consulting starting salaries range from company to company, but average at about £30-40k. Applications start in the autumn, I believe. This would be enough money to move out, rent somewhere, save, and go on holiday. It also doesn’t mean forever. Many people do a few years, or a decade, or even just a training scheme - they take the money and run. Who knows, you might surprise yourself and love it. Save the dreaming for the commute.

“You can’t get behind in your own life; there’s no such thing”

Option B: The Philosopher, AKA thoughtfully take some time off (warning: may require ability to live at home, or vast amounts of money with which to travel)

Why not get a job in hospitality, or a temporary job? This way you can save some money and think mindfully about what you’d like to do. We don’t always make the best decisions in the middle of a Cambridge year, and having this down time could help with decision clarity. You could save some money and go travelling or save enough for a flat rental deposit. The bottom line here is, if you have a safe and supportive environment to live in whilst you figure things out, there is no rush. You can’t get behind in your own life; there’s no such thing.

Option C: The Hybrid Wanderer: have a go freelancing (similar to option B)

Don’t give up on your creative dreams just yet. Often people regret going straight into work without having a go at trying to ‘make it’ in their chosen creative field. But ‘making it’ isn’t always a book/record/role you get before you graduate. Take on that hospitality job or zero-hour contract, and in the meantime, enrol in an arts course, write short stories, get a Sunday singing job. If you start on a little project alongside your job then you’ve got financial security, and you can pursue your creative ambitions a stepping stone at a time.

“Do a Master’s, panicked or unpanicked”

Option D: The Candle (keep the fire alive)

Like a candle, keep that fire alive by finding your niche in the job market. Evaluate what skills you have. For instance, you may be a great reader, or maybe you were more into writing and editing. Find a job that requires writing and editing; perhaps it’s for a company whose mission doesn’t align with your values, but that’s okay, because you’re still writing. And, like the hybrid wanderer, it is a stepping stone, but with more financial incentive. This may look like a traditional 9-5 route, like perhaps doing a grad scheme to gain office experience or working at the university in an administrative role. Keeping the creative juices running by using your skills (perhaps not in the way you envisioned) is a starting point to making your creative dreams a reality.

Option E: The Bookworm

Some just can’t escape it, they’re called to the books. Do a Master’s, panicked or unpanicked. If you know what you love, and what you love is studying, try your best to get onto a Master’s degree course. Now, funding is arguably the trickiest part of getting onto a Master’s program, so again, you can mix and match with a job to save up for your course.

Whilst I’ve covered multiple ways to look at our futures, there is no one size fits all route post-graduation. ‘Selling out’ doesn’t really exist, because, even if you are a banker next year, you can always change your mind and do something else. Just because you don’t land your dream job doesn’t mean that you must give up on all your ambitions. As my mother always says, Rome wasn’t built in a day. If you plant some seeds to cover the basics, the rest will come.