Job Sobs

Admittedly, I haven't gone to extensive efforts to find myself alternative employment.

That aside, I do think there are other factors to consider, here. For one, the job market itself. Whether that's graduate entry or other work, there simply aren't enough jobs for the people who need them. A few years or so ago, most people who wanted a job could get one and intelligent students graduating in numerate degrees from prestigious universities? Why, they would have their choice of job offers. Employers would be begging to have them.  This is what I've heard, at least, I honestly have little concept of what it was like pre-recession, as I was neither old nor economically aware enough to know what it was like for people graduating from university. 

University is just what people like me do. You are clever, therefore you will go to university. There is no question about it and I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's just the obvious path. There is no choice, no consideration for other options and even if there were, most would end up going to university anyway. I mean, why wouldn't you? 

Then, after graduating, you get 'a job'. This job could be anything, I mean, the world is your oyster. But you've never properly worked before, so how do you know what your job should be? So you follow the words of the people you know best. Often, this means your parents and it's hardly surprising that so many people end up in similar roles within the family - doctors, lawyers, teachers - because you know no better, really. Even if your dad was never at home in time for dinner, or your mum comes in, exhausted and wondering why she's in the job she's in. Aside from your teachers, lecturers, academics etc, your parents are really the only access you have to career paths before you have to figure out your own.

I don't know if or how it could be improved; I don't know whether people would benefit from being more aware of what's out there and who's doing it, or if you get to a certain age where it's kind of expected that you go forth and work this out for yourself. You find out what it means to be an actuary or a patent attorney, you discover more jobs than just those you hear about on the television or encounter in your daily life. You find out what exactly the umbrella terms 'business' or 'finance' could actually involve. You go and do it because you're old enough to sort out your own life.

Flitterbox: Greenday - Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)