After Campus: The Hustle

When you finish campus and graduate you ask yourself what next? This is a very tough question and the person best placed to answer it is the individual. The times spent in campus are usually very mixed. Some dedicate the whole duration to partying and binging with friends as time flies away. No sooner have you finished that than you realize that campus life is over and you are now to start your own life. Then it hits you hard that there is nothing to do. You wasted all your money on booze as the ingenious ones bought items or invested cautiously before being caught up in the fray of careless expenditure.

It’s upon one to salvage his/her future to ensure that disasters do not rob them of the stake that they currently own. The bottom-line is for one to live life the way one wants. Campus is a tricky affair that cannot be taken for granted. There is true freedom, but also again there is true responsibility. You realize nothing comes easy. For those not on the know, it is a time to wad off childish deeds and act with some maturity. The truth about leaving campus is that you start a new life where nothing comes easy. You must work for everything and it means serious apprehension of everyone in life.

After campus is when one realizes the need to be independent and chart one's destiny well. You come to terms with the fact that you are no longer a child and therefore have to take responsibility. That is renting a house and furnishing it with the necessary assets and all that is needed in a house. For those who take this responsibility early in life they get to know the true worth and frustrations of novelty in true autonomy.

Self-sufficiency is only attained when you become decisive and break the amiable ties and go fend for the next meal. It’s sometimes easy for those who quickly get jobs and with good pay. But the vast majority soon after completion, life takes a toll on them. When you don’t have a job you really feel the pinch and know where it hurts most. Then the issue of parents comes in. It is ambiguous to ask for help from them when they have been by your side for that long and they expect you to now start returning back the favors.

Sometimes it is embarrassing for parents when they have taken you all through campus (whether though module one or module two) and you end up being jobless in the neighbourhood doing nothing constructive. When neighbours and friends ask whether you have a job yet and you reply in the negative, they only sympathize with you and give an empty reply that you will soon get a job. Inwardly they view your persona to be devoid of some spirit of determination.

Sometimes others may give you hope and inquire for your phone number so that they may help you find some worthy engagements in the meantime. But that usually lasts for that day. Henceforth you are less likely to hear any correspondence from them. And when you do some follow up about the issue they deem you a bother especially when your frequency is so rife. What is left of you is to take the bull by its horns and wait. In the meantime you try to send so many mails to prospective employers who have an automated response then no invitation for any interview.

When life takes a nosedive and lives you with no option, you resort to that which will keep you busy. Many engage in research writing to while away time though the job is in itself very intensive and makes one a recluse. Others go for tasks that are not worth their level since its becoming ubiquitous to accept whatever comes may. That is life. Some graduates visit offices day in day out with the hope that one day they might be smiled upon by lady luck. What is worse is to find an engineering graduate or a microbiology graduate on the streets hustling aggressively as a marketer for some of the big blue chip companies and being paid peanuts.

Our labour laws are much skewed and a complete overhaul of the systems need worked upon so that it can be reengineered to ensure that there is no mismatch of manpower and human resource does not go to waste. Indeed it is fundamental to engage all stakeholders and shareholders so that the college and university graduates are fully absorbed into the system. The issue about lack of jobs is undeniably a refutable fallacy. Statistics show that the country has a shortage of both skilled and semi-skilled manpower in all levels.

This could be the reason why some people are pocketing more than is enough for them for actually engaging in no fruitful work other than cashing in on the already overburdened lot. If more of these people (unemployed skilled and semi-skilled graduates) could be absorbed into the labourforce so that they contribute towards the country’s national income, then a step will have been made in the right direction. Problem is most people like shortcuts that are proving disastrous. Our wants are placed in the state of just acquisition and luxury. After that we struggle again to meet eke a living.

SITUONANE