Degree or CV? How joining a society could be the key to your future.

University often ends up placing me in a weird purgatory between two states of mind. Firstly, a state of financial guilt: I have paid for this degree. I must study for it, constantly. I must spend all my days reading books and learning oodles of exciting things. On the other hand, I remember that a degree only means so much and a CV matters too, and that I must throw myself into every positive opportunity I can to fill future cover letters.

Every day I sit down and end up in one of these two states. I either praise myself for getting involved in extra-curriculars, blame myself for not writing my essay nine weeks in advance, or hate myself for focusing on my degree. Most nights, I sit down and fear that I really should be going out and getting drunk.

At the end of the day, what I need to do is prove to future employers that English Student 1006754 is interested in what he wants to do and has experience to boot. And so here I am, halfway through my degree, and I definitely don’t feel like I’ve learned much more about literature. I may be a bit hardened to capitalism and rather fond of a good postmodern Hungarian novel now, but otherwise my life is little altered by three years of (supposed) reading and writing.

Instead, I have learnt how to market, produce and direct theatre. I have learnt from world-class theatre companies how to work with puppets and improvise properly – the boons of devised theatre. I have also learnt how to broadcast live radio, to edit a paper (although the deputies may think otherwise late on a Saturday night) and the vital importance of a diary and a light laptop.

In 18 months my academic prowess is probably very little different, but what I want to do with my life has changed completely. University is an experience not just about the essays and the library, and not just about jagerbombs and ill-advised make-out sessions downstairs in Smack. University has taught me where my life should be going, and for that I am infinitely grateful.