Graduation

So, I graduated…

I actually really enjoyed the whole day a lot more than I thought I would. The ceremony wasn't boring and I didn't trip or have my hat fall off and we celebrated with a trip to Byron burger! 

A Family Holiday

A few of my holiday snaps from this year. We went to Newport in Pembrokeshire, Wales (as usual) in May.

My 13 year old cousin Tyler (who is in these pictures) took a lot of these photos. I think I need to get him a camera for his birthday!

LIFE CATCH UP.

I was going to do an end of uni/ where I'm headed next post just after I finished uni about 2 weeks ago but so much more has happened and been decided about "the future"since then, so I am going to blurt it all out here just so I can actually organise my thoughts as well as share!

Newest addition to my sunglasses collection, obsessed with these! (From ASOS)

My Time at Uni…

So I finished uni. It's done. The best and most challenging (in a good way) 3 years of my life so far. I really loved uni and I think this is down to the outlook I had when I first started, which was to make the most of my time here and take up as many opportunities as I possibly could and have as many amazing experiences as I could! In my first year I got to grips with education again after being in full time work and by the end of my first year I realised I really enjoy academia. I went to a party with the ipaper, met and had so much fun with new friends, got involved with a society and met my boyfriend. In my second year I got a job at uni as an academic support worker and am still not quite finished doing that job now, I love it and think it is the best (and best paid!) job someone could have at uni. Second year was also the year that I think I worked the hardest, I really 'knuckled down' and didn't go out a whole lot, but it paid off because my grades were getting better and better. Third year felt like the most difficult to me for the first half, and I got so stressed at the end of the first semester that I had a full on panic attack, which is something I had never experienced before and don't care to again! Again my grades at the end of the first semester were some of my best, but I felt like if to get really good grades it meant having panic attacks then it wasn't worth it. So when it came to the last semester of final year I made myself chill out a bit, I still worked hard, especially on my dissertation, which is probably my favourite piece of work from my degree, I loved the process and working on something I loved and creating it all myself. Final year was also the year that I not only worked part time alongside my studies but also volunteered as a tutor for a struggling student at the secondary school next to our uni and became the President of the real Ale Society. I judged the beer of the year at the Oxford Beer Festival for the second year in a row, got offered the chance to write for Beer magazine and left the contact details at the festival. My final year was actually one where I met some of my favourite people during my time at uni and I love that uni gives you that opportunity to meet new friends throughout your whole time. Uni is such a strange and amazing world if you get it right, I really wanted to carry on and do a masters and maybe some day I will but for now I can't afford it and feel like I need a break from education.

Celebrating end of uni!

The Future…

I started applying for things this semester because I thought I should try! I applied for a couple of internships, one was with Cambridge University Press and one was with Oxford University Press and after applying for both I completely forgot about them because I thought I would never hear back. Almost a month later I had a rejection email from Cambridge, which if anything just reminded me that I had applied! I wasn't surprised though. Then a few days later I looked at my emails to find I had been invited for an interview at OUP, I literally couldn't (and still can't) believe it! It is a really competitive internship and I had an interview. I wen straight to the careers service at uni and told them so I could have a mock interview to help me prepare - I'd had plenty of interviews but nothing professional like this! I did my mock interview and it went well, bought a suit and looked so smart I felt like a lawyer or something! The OUP building was quite intimidating, grand pillars inside and out and lots of people rushing around but the building was amazing and has a cafe inside and everything! (little things) I was interviewed by 2 people and had to prepare a task beforehand which was to edit a book. When I came out of the interview I felt like it had gone well, but still had the feeling there would be someone better. This was a monday and they told me I'd hear back at the end of the next week. The following monday we were in shrewsbury visiting my family and had popped into town when I missed a call, we searched the number and it was OUP. I found a quiet spot and phoned them back to find out that I'd only bloody got it! You can watch my reaction in this vlog: 

So starting 30th June I will be working at OUP! I'm so excited and a bit nervous because I need to prove myself now! I genuinely think that my full time work experience plus all the stuff I talked about above that I did while at uni is what got me this job. I just hope my skills don't all fall out of my head between now and then…

Yesterday we had another bit of excitement as Charlie went for an interview and got the job on the same day! He has accepted and will be doing a marketing internship for the next year at Oxford Brookes in the Careers department. This means we both have something straight out of uni, which is amazing - especially these days when everything is so competitive and difficult. It also means we will be staying around the Oxford area for the next year, although I might try and get a job in London after my internship. 

It's amazing and I'm so happy we both have managed to get something immediately after finishing our degrees. I thought we would both end up jobless and living at our parents' houses or something but I guess our very hard work has paid off and that I'm just a bit of a pessimist like my Dad haha!

Filling out forms for OUP after getting the job!

So that is my life at the moment and we both have a few fun things coming up: we're going to the Royal Albert Hall with Charlie's family on Sunday and then next week we are going on holiday with my famalam and after that we are helping out at a literature conference at uni, which should be good fun! I've also just got tickets to go and see First Aid Kit (my favourite band) in September at the Royal Albert Hall! Today is a positive day (:

This has been a ridiculously long post that probably only I will ever read the whole of, and kind of shows that I need to do more regular posts so they can be a *bit* shorter!

What exciting news have you had lately, or do you have anything fun planned for the summer? Let me know in the comments! For more posts you can follow me on Bloglovin'!