how i overcame my graduate anxiety

It’s summer graduation season and my social media feed is full of young graduates celebrating their hard work and success. I love to see it. My graduation day was one of my favourite days of my life so far, a day where I could celebrate the blood, sweat, tears, and four pound vodka slushies from Limelight (one of the local nightclubs), that got me through my degree. Our graduation ceremony was even graced by Lady Hale, the former President of the Supreme Court, who I was lucky enough to meet after. However, despite my elation, the day wasn’t exclusively champagne and strawberries. Sitting at the ceremony, gowned, and waiting for my name to be called, I was surrounded by my peers who had, for the most part, secured training contracts and graduate jobs. I, on the other hand, had nothing lined up apart from my two four hour shifts a week in the clothing section of my local Tesco.

To say I was suffering from an existential crisis is an understatement. My previous career plans had imploded after my rejection from a scholarship that would have paid for what I thought was my ‘dream course.’ I spent hours every day half-heartedly applying for jobs abroad that I had minimal interest in, and twice a week, I would clock in to my shift in my local Tesco. My shift would be spent swallowing back tears as I stocked shelves with men’s boxers and school uniforms. I didn’t know what it was that I wanted, but I knew that it wasn’t that.

Slowly but surely I began to realise that I needed a break from studying. I wanted to develop myself outside of my academic life. I had always wanted to live in Spain and I always knew that one day I would speak Spanish and I needed to get away from my hometown and go somewhere sunny. So that’s what I decided to do. And one year later, I am coming to the end of my year abroad in Alicante where I have spent the last ten months teaching English to children from the ages of two to eighteen. It’s not what I thought I wanted, and yet it was exactly what I needed.

I remember walking into my first day of work, sick to the stomach with sun poisoning from a weekend of irresponsible sunbathing. I remember seeing the students shock on their faces when they heard my accent for the first time and I remember the feeling of relief when my first day was over. I can’t believe that that was ten long months ago. There were times when I felt on top of the world, that the children listened to me, that they could depend on me and that they enjoyed being in my class. There were other times when I left work feeling deflated, that I had no authority, that I was too harsh or that I didn’t encourage the children in the way that I should have. From time to time, my sister liked to remind me that unlike my mother who is a qualified teacher with twenty years of experience I was, ‘not a real teacher.’ Although this was a distinction that I could appreciate, it was one that didn’t really matter when I was faced with a class full of screaming children.

However, despite the more complicated moments, I do feel as though I left the children with an improved level of English and by the time the academic year ended, they even knew their fair share of Irish slang and some Irish too. Every time I heard them say something that I knew they had learnt directly from me, I felt a burst of pride. However, no matter how many verbs or adjectives I taught them, no matter how many times I corrected their pronunciation or their grammar, I was, without a doubt, the one learning the most. I learnt that I could handle the huge responsibility of looking children, I learnt that I could be comforting, that I could be patient, that I could be kind, but at the same time, that I didn’t take any nonsense. I learnt that I could approach difficult situations in a mature and measured fashion and that I could handle whatever was thrown my way (sometimes literally). I learnt that every child is different, that they are all bursting with potential and that it is the job of the adults around them to help them to realise that potential. It didn’t take too long before I realised that I had the immense privilege of seeing all of these children in their purest and most innocent form, in the way that they were created, and that they were, for the most part, unmarked by the inevitable hardships that life would bring. I felt so protective of their innocence and vulnerability. I always knew that teaching gave you an enormous amount of power. We all have stories of teachers who, drunk with power, have said or done something that has completely shattered our confidence or our self-esteem and through studying sociology for A-Level I learnt about how teachers are a massive contributor to educational inequality. I learnt about the labelling theory and self-fulfilling prophecies. I learnt that when you label a child as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or ‘shy’ or ‘loud’ that that is what they will become- to you anyway. When I learnt all of this, at the age of 17, it was just theory, something that I read from a textbook and regurgitated in the exam hall, but when I started teaching, I knew from my previous studies that my words and my actions could have a huge influence on the children’s self-esteem. I didn’t take on this responsibility lightly. I definitely wasn’t perfect, but I tried hard to make every student feel valued in my class. More than that though, I was curious to see if these theories would reflect real life. One example I can remember was when my boss was filling me in about the children before I met them for the first time. I remember her telling me that a certain student was quite shy. She didn’t tell me this out of malice, or to label the student, but instead out of kindness, so that I could better connect with them. However, I decided that I would see for myself and by the end of the year, this particular student was the first one to raise her hand and shout, ‘Me, please!’ even when she didn’t know the answer. I am not a sociologist by any means, but this happening made me question my own experience with education, and the actual validity of teachers’ opinions.

My short stint as a teacher in Alicante was a far cry from my supposed dream course in London that may have allowed me to go on to become a barrister, but I feel as though moving to a foreign country, learning a new language and standing up in front of a class of children day in and day out all on my own, taught me more than any course ever could. At the time of my rejection I questioned and questioned what was next, I couldn’t fathom a future in which becoming a barrister was not my main goal. In the moments where I felt lost and utterly clueless about what was to come, I would think about the time I went to visit my granny and my aunts, stressed to the hills about my exam results that were coming the next day. When I told them of my worries, they burst into song, almost like in a musical you see on the television, ‘Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be, the future’s not ours to see, que sera, sera.’

A short year after my supposedly devastating rejection, I have a law degree, a year’s teaching experience abroad, I can now speak Spanish, and I have a place in a university in Paris next year where I will study a masters in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action. The point of this blog post is not to boast, or encourage you to upsticks and move country at the slightest inconvenience, but to serve as a reminder if you’ve just graduated and have nothing lined up, or if you’re just generally concerned about the future, that it will always work out in the end, and if it hasn’t worked out yet, then it’s not the end.