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7.4.1 The Creative Arts graduate- helplessness

Joe is an example of someone for whom his imagined figure of being a graduate has been cruelly dashed. He appears to be one of the most vulnerable of participants. He

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completed his degree in Computer Games Design, saying he was drawn to this subject due to an expanded media sector in Northcity, where he was born, went to university and continues to live. The figure of the graduate he would like to be eludes him, and he suspects being a graduate may be a disadvantage in the world that he is operating in:

But the way I found it was a lot of companies are looking for people without degrees for the starting levels so they can train them up. So it’s like a lot of companies will turn you down for your degree, a lot of companies won’t even give you a reply.

Joe has got entangled in Job Centre processes which have shifted his gaze to jobs that he is probably over-qualified for. However, his disappointment indicates the hope he had put in the figure of being a graduate; but does not appear to have the individual capacity or resources to make real. He is a graduate of a new and emerging field of study closely connected to developments that straddle creativity and new technology. However, Joe is unsatisfied.

It seems like I said before, a lot of companies for their entry level positions keep turning me down because I have this degree and it’s a bit like, it sounds a bit childish but I kind of feel like it’s not fair that I go through all this work to get this degree and it’s then turned down for the job because I have when I was kind of promised the opposite in a way.

It isn’t clear where he may consider this promise came from, but he does feel that he has been deceived somehow.

7.4.2 The History graduate - disappointment

Being a graduate has so far not lived up to Dylan’s hopes. His imagined figure provides him both comfort and rebuke. His response to questions convey both confidence at what it means to have a first class degree in History, with a lack of confidence in dealing with transferring this success with getting started on his career. Becoming a graduate has given him important affirmation of his academic credentials and he conveys his seriousness about his studies when he compares himself favourably to others who had an “easy ride” to get a second. The figure of the graduate as intellectually able and hard- working is one he compares himself favourably to.

…I mean I’ve, probably the hardest I’ve worked academically. Any notion people say, oh students have an easy ride in going through their degree, well that’s only if they’re coming out with a second. If they’re coming out with a First then they’re really putting the effort in.

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He also justifies being a commuter student which meant he couldn’t get closer to student life, by dismissing the typical student lifestyle, “most of the time it’s just getting drunk”. His intellectual self-belief also emerges when he reflects on the symbolic differences of graduates from different universities, arguing that the academic quality of a first from Oxbridge is not really any different from a first from Northcity, while he also tries to make sense of differential social capital:

If you come out with a First, Oxford, Cambridge, obviously it’s going to have a little more standing than coming out with a First at Northcity but the difference isn’t going to be that much, the main difference is the connections that you’re going to make…

However, his career so far has been disappointing for him. His confidence in his academic ability in comparison to others risks hubris, when faced with the job market. Twenty months on, he remains stuck in the part-time, zero hours contract market research job he did through university. His ideal is to join the police and is already volunteering as a special constable, but is not confident that he will be able to get a job in the police due to public sector cuts. As such, he cannot invest too much in this future imagined figure as it appears under threat by forces outside of him, and he appears to be protecting himself from disappointment.

7.4.3 The Business graduate – regret

Elizabeth has a degree in Business and Tourism Management. She moved to London after her degree and has worked in a number of entry level travel industry jobs already. Although she is broadly working in the industry she was educated in, she is not satisfied. She mentions pay twenty times in her interview, and it preoccupies her that she is not earning more, although she also indicates that some higher paid jobs are more stressful which she doesn’t want either.

Cos right now I’m still trying to get my experience but cos I’m on minimum pay I can’t get my own place at the moment, so it’s a bit of a struggle for me. I am looking for a job at the moment but I don’t want to go for a low salary.

She has mixed feelings about the work she is doing and has begun to doubt whether this is the right industry for her anyway. It appears to be an industry she has drifted into, going back to disappointing GCSEs which led her to do a BTEC in Travel and Tourism because there was not much choice for her at the time. She thinks she would have done better in the travel industry if she had just worked rather than going to university, as her perception is that the industry doesn’t really value graduates. When she filled in her

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survey questionnaire she was working as a Travel after-sales administration assistant, but said she didn’t need her degree, which is illustrative of how she thinks her industry does not value graduates.

Although, Elizabeth is proud of her degree, it appears that she feels she is not in a sector which gives the recognition she wants as a graduate, and this has left her doubting the value of the educational pathway she has followed, and berating herself for earlier decisions/behaviours going back as far as high school.