Wordsmith Lane

Simple Q&A’s…except for the As…

Appeared in: The word…from Sam, (Students At Macquarie Magazine), Issue 24 (23/10/2006)

Copyright, Sarah Ayoub, 2006

As we enter the Semester Two End Game period, Sarah Ayoub explores the most fundamental of questions for Third Years: So what happens now?

There’s a certain melancholy that comes with the end of term. There’s also the feeling of pressure of assessments piling up and the excitement of the holidays drawing near. But for a Third Year, each time you hand in another piece of work, it’s accompanied by the question “Do you know where you’re going yet? At first the question is posed to one’s self. A slight worry, as we’ve had three years to work out the answer. Perhaps more disconcerting is when the question is put to you by a complete stranger. Every time I meet someone new on the train, I excitingly reveal to them that I have one term left of my writing degree before I answer the call to freedom. they invariably enter the dialogue with the same question: “What are you going to do when you finish?”I envy those of you who find no harm in this simple question. In my world, there are Third Years all around me freaking out as their days of being uni students (translation: easy-going, breezing through life on an array of discounts and parties, and only the occasional late night attributable to a history assessment) are drawing to a close. One classmate recently mentioned that she had one term of her writing degree left – but had just realised she wouldn’t mind working in the health sciences industry. We’re a confused bucnh of soon-to-be graduates.

Maybe a holiday on the Gold Coast is the right place, and summer might well be the right time. I’ll make sure I pack my resume…and if all goes well, my uni degree.