Coming out of uni with a grade lower than you wanted can feel like the end of the world, but for me it turned out to be anything but...
For as long as I can remember, I’d always wanted to be a lawyer. Looking back, I'm not sure if this was because I was genuinely interested in law or if I just really enjoyed outsmarting someone in a good argument. Either way, when I was accepted to university to study law, it felt like the beginning of the rest of my life. I fully expected to qualify with 2:1 (maybe even a first), and live out the rest of my days pulling up to court in a Range Rover with a Birkin bag on my arm.
In my first year of uni, I worked HARD. I didn’t go out once, I kept my head down, and I got good results in everything except EU Law (not that that’s relevant now anyway, eh?). I was on track for a 2:1 for sure.
But when I returned for second year everything just kind of fell apart, for reasons I can’t really pinpoint. My grades started slipping to the point where I was offered a do-over due to extenuating circumstances, which I refused. I think I just fell out of love with everything about where my life was going, and I was beyond the point of caring.
Despite the warning signs I hung on in there, and eventually graduated a 2:2 (0.5% off a 2:1!). Not the grade I’d arrived at uni hoping for, but to be honest, I’m amazed I even got that!
But if I thought studying for a degree I no longer wanted was tough, graduating with a grade that was much lower than I’d hoped for was even harder.
I was crashing at a mate’s house when I got my results. Her and her housemate were on the same course, so we all got our results on the same day. I’m not sure they really knew how to act when they were so made up with their results and I was clearly devastated with mine, but they sat and comforted me while I panicked about telling my parents.
For the next few months I did the inevitable. When I wasn’t at my sinking ship of a retail job, I sat in bed and watched Netflix and drank more than I cared to admit on Saturday nights. I drowned in the thought that I was so painfully average.
While I was completely re-thinking/ freaking out about my future, many of my friends were taking the next step on their chosen paths. Although I was immensely proud of them, I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous when I saw their posts about job offers and photos of their new, exciting, successful lives.
The funny thing is, it was actually my ‘sinking ship of a retail job’ that led me to my dream career. While I hated my degree, when I left and went into full time retail work I realised that I not only I really really missed learning new things and challenging my brain, but I also loved working in fashion. With a law degree, many of the answers are right or wrong, but I realised I’d always preferred modules where there was more room for creative input.
Thanks to this series of realisations, I was able to apply for a masters - which I wouldn’t have been able to do without my undergrad degree – and change career paths, from law to fashion.
Two years on, and I honestly couldn’t be happier with how things have worked out. I’ve now completed my masters in Luxury Fashion Brand Management, and have been offered waaaay more opportunities to do cool things than I ever would have in law, like styling TV ads and magazine shoots and presenting product hauls for SHS.
I’ve also come to realise that although I didn’t leave with the degree grade I was hoping for, I gained loads of life skills during my time at uni studying for my BA in law – like learning to live independently, budget and time management - and I bet you did too.
So if you feel like you didn’t do as well as you should have, please don’t discredit yourself. Our generation is under so much pressure to have their lives planned out from such an early age, with a stable career, a house, and whatever else. But realistically, now days we‘re much more likely to have frequent job changes and rent for much, much longer
The fact is, sometimes university doesn’t work out how you’d hoped. At the time it can feel like the end of the world and that you’re letting a lot of people down, but as someone who’s been through it and come out the other side, I can assure you, it’s not and you haven’t. Take time to figure yourself out, do things you love, and make your happiness and wellbeing your main priority, and the rest will follow.
