Musings on Our Fates as (Incoming) University Graduates

I was reading an interview of Chinua Achebe in The Paris Journal and of course, nothing but gems came from the man. But one particular sentence struck me:

“I really had no idea what I was going to do when I left college. I’m amazed when I think about students today. They know from day one what they are going to be. We didn’t. We just coasted. We just knew that things would work out. Fortunately, things did work out. There were not too many of us. You couldn’t do that today and survive.”

The statement just struck me like a thunderbolt. It wouldn’t even be an exaggeration to say no truer words had been spoken — especially on the Ghanaian front. Gone are the days when one could graduate from the University and be assured that there would be no difficulty finding a job. After all, it was jobs galore in the civil service and the nascent private sector back then. It would always be alright. Not so now — the job market is hard, very hard. Most graduates are pouring out from our universities without an assurance in sight about securing a job. Thus, there is no hope about things “working out”. You do that and you’re dead meat!

You have to put in so much work. You need to get into the right internships, network your arse off, keep your LinkedIn updated and so on and on and on. It can get tiring, so so tiring and yet, the drudgery must go on. You can’t even spend some time even daydreaming of the “good ol days” or else, you’ll be left behind!

I really have nothing to conclude this rant with. I don’t have any advice or anything — I just had to get this off my chest. But alas, I can only wish everyone good luck in this rat race we’re in. I pray that we are all able to drink our palm wine in peace, assured that we’ve tried our best.

Deo Volente!

PS: These are raw, unvarnished thoughts I decided to bang in between assignments. Please do comment on what you think of the piece!