Type 1'stars R Us

MeiChanski said:

Hello friends,

University got back to say to say they can't accept work now because the board of examiners are marking it today and the meeting is tomorrow. (they have a tight schedule) I said sorry to myself because I had the opportunity to do it but I spent time feeling sorry for myself and let the negative cookie get in the way of things. So I'll have time to think this through in terms of opportunities - I don't have work experience and I don't have any income to go back to college to do anything that I want to do. So it'll be working for someone to get work experience. The grade boundaries for degree apprenticeships are on par with university entry grades, so I'll have no luck getting one of those. However if I look at level 2 and level 3 apprenticeships, my intellectual ability is above that and the government doesn't cover costs for me because of my age and I've been to university - I think apprenticeships are for 16-24? I've also applied to apprenticeships to see if I'll be accepted, but no one got back to me.

I also don't want to go home because I grew up in a takeaway and my parents will make me work there (my parents have their own businesses, they came to the UK with not a lot of wealth. When they had my brother and myself, they started their own food takeaway business and since then they have been able to buy and invest in properties etc. You could say I've been spoilt by my parents from a very young age.) and it's not really a position to gain life experience or a professional work experience. Nothing wrong with it, it's just I want to meet new people and create a network of people to connect with.

I also have a feeling that university will throw me because I didn't meet their expectations and it was my 3rd attempt to do it. It's kind of like how Russell group universities kick students out for not meeting their grade criteria or fail in certain modules.
My university were nice and generous but they didn't offer me any help with the coursework and that was the same feeling I had when I did my alevels. My bf couldn't help me because he excelled in maths and sciences, same with both of my brothers, my parent's english isn't that great to help me so all in all I had to rely on myself. You could argue that teaching yourself a subject can be difficult without guidance from my lecturers. I mean the powerpoint slides are just a few sentences and a few images, some of my modules don't record their lectures because students won't turn up if they find out it's been recorded. Because I'm not there to record it myself, I lose out as well.

However I am okay, I'm not okay for missing my opportunity and I will take this as a lesson that I need to better myself for me and not for anyone else.

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@MeiChanski - Only you can decide how you move forward from your unfortunate set of circumstances, however, I would certainly urge you to take a bit of time to come to terms with where you find yourself, and to make any decisions about your longer terms next steps.

A family member of ours was unwell during her finals, and indeed was discharged from hospital on the morning of her final exam, which she sat that afternoon.

Where she had been forecast a 1st, she ended up with a 2:2 and utterly devastated. She refused, point blabk, to make a submission for a remark or for her circumstances to be taken into account. Was that wise? Who knows, but that was her decision.

For the next year she worked in Frankie & Bennies and was quickly promoted to a supervisory position, but whilst physically challenging, it wasn't intellectually stretching.

In the fullness of time (about a year), she had decided against a Masters, and eventually she applied for a graduate scheme, where she is doing well.

A while ago she was talking about what had happened and how she had ended up going in a very different direction with her career than she initially planned, but these days, she feels in many ways it was a challenge that has eventually put her onto her correct career path.

Many eons ago, when I was feeling trapped, with an excellent degree, but a strongly vocational one, I had a long heart to heart with my then boyfriend. I was bemoaning my position - vocational degree (what can I do with that?), bringing in a very health income (which needed to be replaced, because in reality we get used to these things!), and no idea what I wanted the future to look like.

D's advice to me was to forget the degree and professional qualifications, but to sit with several pieces of paper and just list my attributes - things like, "I have decent organisational skills". "I can solve sometimes tricky problems/puzzles." "I can track progress and plan future steps." "I can write a decent letter or report", and so on.

From there, it sounds very obvious, but I built a list of skills that weren't specifically tethered to my profession of the time.

I move on and my career took a different direction too.

Give yourself time. Focus on the things you can do, not those which have gone awry, and write a blue sky list of things you'd like to do.

Maybe you would like to spend a year as crew on a super yacht, or on Necker Island (or the like). Maybe you'd like to so a season in a St Moritz chalet. Maybe you'd like to paint.

Can any of those things make you money and broaden your skill base. I tell you what, doing a season in St Moritz of in the Med/Caribbean crewing super yachts makes for good interview chat, and by the time you had had a total change of focus for a while, the future might just look clearer.

It's a bump in the road.

MeiChanski said:

Thank you @DCUKMod
I have started on my list of what I can do and what I am good at, rather than things I'm not good at. I am also waiting for my university's decision and depending on their decision I will then look for jobs to get by for the time being. My bf said it's not too late to start a family at the age of 35 because we both want stability first.

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Meichanski - Do you live in a city, or a rural area?