*Ok, so technically it’s an end-of-degree crisis but that just wasn’t as catchy.

So if you didn’t know, I am an English Literature student currently in my third and final year of study. I’ve spent the last two and a bit years studying everything from Bede to Byron and now it’s come to a point where I actually have to start making important life decisions. 

*Pulls duvet cover up over head*

Here is my trail of thought organised helpfully into three succinct points. I hope you appreciate the time and effort spent in organising my thoughts into a coherent stream of ideas rather than actually doing anything to solve my problem:

1. I know nothing about the real world unless you count how to read a book in a very short amount of time.

It was whilst having an existentialist Beckett-related breakdown last week, that I realised just how irrelevant an English degree is in the scheme of things. Sure, I’m learning valuable analysis skills that I can transfer to a variety of careers, and that’s wonderful, but really, and I mean really, who in the real world cares how much you know about whether or not you can contextualise Beckett’s work? I’ve spent my time at university studying such a huge variety of literature and texts that now I just know a little about everything and not a lot about anything important.

Simples

2. I don’t know that to do with my life.

I’ve said for years that I would love to go into the publishing sector and become a book editor, and I still would. But at the same time I can’t help but feel that there’s so much more I want to do with my life before I settle down into an office job. As naive and cliché as it may be, I would love to travel and see the world before I become stuck on the corporate ladder. Going to Cambodia has only inspired me to travel even further and for even longer.

But a) where exactly am I going to get the money for said travelling?

 b) I can’t just go frolicking around the world without a plan or a future.

c) What if I miss out on a great career opportunity while I’m away and return to years of debt and disappointment?

3. I really don’t know what to do with my life.

And just when I think it can’t get any worse a huge surge of doubt rolls over and I wonder if I will ever really be satisfied with anything. Just call me Faust. (See, I have learnt something in my degree: how to make incredibly tenuous literary analogies. Success!)

I’m so incredibly indecisive and become so easily jealous, that I have to make my friends get the same dessert as me at restaurants just in case theirs is better and I get upset. How tragic is that? So basically whatever I choose to do, I’ll always wish I’d chosen the other option. 

And with that, I’m sure you can understand just why I’m currently disorientated, disillusioned and desperate.

Clearly I’m left with one option:

Crazy cat lady.

Except I’m allergic to cats so can’t even become that. Oh life.

This woman seems to think it’s a viable career