It was always one of the key factors of me doing the degree and one of my main focuses during that time. I wanted it real badly, I just wanted to get out of Norfolk (laughs). I've got to be honest, I wanted something more out of life than what I'd already had.
Did you do anything that you knew would contribute towards your prospects of getting a career at the end?
Well yeah, I was doing my degree (laughter).
Were you doing anything in addition to your degree?
Do you mean like extra curricular stuff?
Or any sort of planning, where you thought this is where I want to be, how do I need to go about doing it?
I think maybe actually I was a bit lazy in that respect, during my final year, I think if I'd put more effort into doing a job search in then and putting applications in then, I may have got somewhere, which is where I think to this day that I went wrong, because if I'd done that several months before the shit hit the fan in terms of the world economy, then I think I might have got something.
But why did you decide to do that?
I actually thought it would be the easiest option, doing what I'm doing and trying to search for a job at the same time, not that hard, but the summer after graduation or the summer of graduation it was a very, very busy time for me – i.e. new house, new housemates, I had this job – sometimes I was doing 60 hours a week on minimum whack (laughter), I mean it was not a nice time really, it was a very, very awful time when I look back at it and something I wouldn't want to do again.
I feel itchy sometimes, like I've done this degree and now I'm in this stupid job that I shouldn't really be in because I don't want to be there and I've got far too much to my name to warrant me staying there.
So how do you feel about your attitude to careers during university, when you look at it in retrospect?
Maybe expectations are too high or were too high. I put a lot of pressure on myself, it was something that I needed, I had to have it, this was what was going to happen and I was very adamant in my brain about what was going to happen. I'm going to leave uni, I'm going to get the debts sorted, I'm going to get this career and everything is going to be hunky dory, whereas in fact it wasn't.
There are some things you can deal with, and I can deal with that, but I do feel as though I've let myself down sometimes because I didn't put enough effort in with the job searches and everything. I should have just gone for things instead of just sitting around hoping it would happen. I should have been more proactive, I know that and I hold my hands up to that. It's sort of half my fault, half the world's fault (laughter).
