Life after University
And what do I do with this degree?
This is not the blog post that I had planned, but I feel like this one pretty much wrote itself. It’s a little bit personal, but I know I’m not alone in feeling the way I am. The universe has given me a few signs, and I thought, this is going to keep happening until I write about it.
(Originally, my next planned blog post was going to be a deep-dive about AI art, but it’s taking way longer than I thought it would. I keep getting side-tracked and finding more articles to read… when your notes alone are more than two thousand words, you know it’s going to be a deep dive.)
(I think I’m going to split it up into two parts, so keep an eye out for when that finally happens!)
The first sign the universe gave me was a conversation at work. I was making small talk with someone a little while ago (when I say a little while ago, it was probably a few months ago) and they asked what do you do when you’re not working? I almost said I’m studying!, until I realised, I’m not actually a student anymore.
Reasonable response, I was a student for the better part of five years. It was a bit part of my life, but I’m moving on. No big deal.
So I say I finished uni last year. Which leads to the inevitable, what did you study – oh I did Creative Industries – oh what can you do with that degree?
My standard response is, I can do a lot of jobs in the art industry, or I can start my own business which is what I’m in the process of doing.
This conversation gives me prickles of unease, thinking about the future. But usually it’s fine.
Another variation of this conversation I had with someone else ended with them saying why did you do that degree if you knew it wasn’t going to get you a job?
Um, I don’t know? Because I wanted to? Why else?
Cue me walking away as quickly as possible.
The second sign from the universe was the email.
Dear Clarissa,
Thank you for participating in the 2022 Graduate Outcomes Survey. The results have been released…
I completed a lot of surveys while studying – the email notifications are persistent and constant. Most of the time I was willing, knowing that my responses helped better shape the courses for future students. This particular survey was a part of the QILT initiative, and the results were… informative?
(A little bit of background: QILT (stands for Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching) are a “suite of government endorsed surveys for higher education, across the student life cycle from commencement to employment.” The information gathered from these surveys helps universities “drive quality improvement.”
All 41 Australian universities and approximately 90 other higher education institutions take part in these surveys.)
For context, the 2022 QILT Graduate Outcomes Survey focused on student employment after university, postgraduate study rates, and graduate satisfaction. It also discussed the impact of COVID-19, the gender pay gap, and how well courses prepared graduates for the workforce, among other things.
The results showed that 131, 311 students took part in 2022 the survey. Respondents were split up into 21 groups, based on their area of study (I was mostly interested in the Creative Arts category, because that’s me!). Only 3,796 of the total respondents completed degrees related to Creative Arts – that’s 2.9% of the survey (which isn’t a lot in comparison to the Business and Management graduates, which made up almost 20% of respondents!).
It was interesting to read the survey results, knowing that it was students like me that were providing the information, and that my responses were in amongst all that data. The statistics that caught my attention the most were undergraduate employment rates.
Although undergraduates have a higher chance of being employed in 2022 than they did in 2019 or 2020 (thanks COVID-19, for that one), Creative Arts had the lowest undergraduate full-time employment rate post-university, at 57.3%. The overall employment rate is still pretty low, at 81.2%.
(In comparison, the highest full-time undergraduate employment rate was 96.5%, for Rehabilitation graduates. Creative arts also had one of the lowest full-time median undergraduate salaries, at $56,800.)
I understand, different sectors have different employment demands, and different industries will pay better. But still, it’s a little bit disheartening to see these numbers on government-approved paper.
The third sign was an ArtsHub article in my Facebook feed: tips on transitioning from student life to working life. Okay universe, I get it. I still have the same retail job I had in 2021, so what?
(It’s more likely that Google is tracking my every web search, but in that moment it felt like some unfortunate and unwanted serendipity.)
But it’s not all statistical doom and gloom. As the ArtsHub article pointed out (because yes, of course I read it), it’s common for people in the arts to stay employed in their positions for long periods of time. Job listings for your dream job may be few and far between. And usually there’s lots of people with similar qualifications applying for the same job. That doesn’t make you any less qualified!
(I guess that’s why I’m trying to take the self-employed route, even if it’s slow to start.)
One of the big take-aways of the article (and I tell myself this almost every day), is don’t compare yourself to others. Other people may get jobs before you, and that’s okay.
“No two career journeys are the same.”
So I’ll take my journey one step at a time.
Keep up with my art journey!
