I've gone from being a napping, biscuit-munching student, to a 9-5 office girl designing full-time and sitting on the sofa every evening looking like a zombie...
...and I have a bone to pick:
8 Things Nobody Told Me About 'THE REAL WORLD'*
- There are no naps in the real world.
- You will feel tired at the end of the day, despite having been sat down for 8 hours.
- In the real world, everyone emails each other. I know they're sitting a mere 3 feet away. Don't question it. It just IS.
- Prepare to be taxed. 23% of your wages will disappear before you can even touch them. Twenty threeeee percent. Think about it.
- Going to the bank is nigh on impossible. It's Saturday mornings or never.
- You've got 12 months to crawl out of that overdraft.
- Petrol is very expensive.
- If you want to make boring phonecalls then you will have the pleasure of squishing them into your 30 minute lunchbreak. A mouthful of sandwich, chatting to the HMRC, booking your cat into the vet, calling your Dad to check he's still alive etc etc.
- I graduated from university with a high 2:1 (2 more marks and it would've been a first. Gah.)
- I passed my driving test
- I bought my first car
- I left my part-time job of 4 years at Lush
- I got my first "proper" full-time job
- My cat had 4 kittens
- I went to Paris for 24 hours
- I slept in a fire engine for 3 nights
- I had my first big proper scary terrible disaster everything-goes-wrong illustration job
- I got a few more freelance jobs that went fine
- I became KNACKERED
- I also became skint
I'm going to try and post more regularly, zombie-like-state permitting.
My top piece of advice to take away from this would be:
University is a cushy walk in the park. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Any things to add? What shocked you about leaving the university bubble and joining the 9-5 gang? Were you exhausted too?