but jokes apart, wetin una dey do after una graduate?
asking for myself now o.
Since my freshman year, I’ve anticipated the day I’ll finally graduate. Everybody anticipates it, obviously, but I carry my own for head.
Where are my manners? Let me reintroduce myself. 😝
Finalist in the fucking charrttsss.
My name is Oluchi Marvellous, a final-year student of Clinical Physiology, and I am lost.
Not lost per se. I think realization just hit me yesterday morning and all I could do was yell, omo.
After four years of structure, caffeine, timetables, exam pressure and, most importantly —
“Daddy, good evening.”
I’ll graduate soon.
Damn.
I’ve not really figured my life out yet.
I still make mistakes. I still cry when situations are beyond my control. I am still dependent on my parents. Worst of all, my grades are slipping, while I have my whole existence planned ahead in my head.
And somewhere inside all those plans is one very important detail:
I do not want to move back to my parents’ house.
NYSC
I’ve never liked the Clarion BS.
Actually, I find it — or rather, see it — as secondary tertiary education because why is it compulsory?
I barely survived university and now I’m supposed to spend another year in God-knows-where serving my fatherland.
A land that has been unkind to me in my 10s and early 20s.
I spent the last two years and eight months complaining about how much I hate school.
Or, more accurately, how much I hate schooling in Abakaliki.
And now that the finish line is finally visible, I’m suddenly looking at it like —
“Wait. What happens after I cross this?”
The Labour Market™
As it is popularly called by graduates, I don’t know how to navigate it.
I thought I was getting the hang of it.
Omo, I am not o.
Nigerian employers are so cruel to their employees. Sometimes I genuinely wonder: if I had the means, do you think I would be working under you?
Would I not just partner with you?
Because why are you paying me ₦100k and expecting me to have the emotional stability of Aliko Dangote?
Anyway.
I’ve tried content creation — especially beauty content creation — but somehow, I still end up back where I started.
Confused.
It’s not like as if I am not trying o.
But sometimes I genuinely wonder:
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Do I actually want to build a career in Social Media and Content Strategy?
Or am I just good at it, so I convinced myself that I want it?
Because there’s a difference between being good at something and wanting to spend the rest of your life doing it.
And I don’t know which one this is.
Moving Out vs. Moving Back Home
Don’t get me started.
I love my parents o. I really do.
But IT has made me realise that my parents may never fully see things from my POV.
My mum is convinceable.
My dad?
Whew.
A hard nut to crack.
And maybe that’s normal.
Maybe adulthood is partly accepting that your parents love you deeply while also accepting that they might not understand every decision you want to make with your life.
But I know one thing:
I don’t want to move back home.
I don’t want to pay for everything with my mental health because I spiral more than 10 times a day.
I don’t want to come back home after spending four years trying to become my own person, only to feel like I have somehow gone backwards.
But then again, moving out requires money.
Money I don’t have.
And that, my friends, is where the plot thickens.
So… is this a safe space?
Because I am mentally crashing out.
I don’t want to stay back in university.
I want to graduate.
But at the same time, I need structure.
I need a grip.
I need something to fall back on.
I need to know what the hell I’m doing next.
Should I try tech?
Should I go all in on Social Media and Content Strategy?
Should I pursue something completely different?
Should I just graduate first and let the rest of my life unfold?
Because for someone who has spent the last four years counting down to graduation, it is quite ironic that now that graduation is finally within reach, I’m standing here like —
“Okay… and then what?”
Oti sun mi.
But jokes apart,
wetin una dey do after una graduate?
Asking for myself now o.
