by Stevan Balac
Illustration by Fay Qian
A foul spectre haunts our Third Year cohort at LSE. Like some cheap horror flick poltergeist, or J.K Rowling’s ‘Basilisk’, it slithers and pitter-patters across the empty corridors behind us and is spoken about only in hushed, wide eyed whispers. Indeed, to those of us who are embracing every moment of this final year, anyone raising the topic in conversation will undoubtedly have committed a social faux pas – and shall rightly be given a piercing glance, as if they have noisily broken wind during a Candlelit Vigil…
‘What the hell do we do when we finish uni?’
In fairness, it’s a good question. And there are a number of good options. There is the Stay-At-LSE Masters (’how do you do, fellow kids?’), the try for Oxbridge Masters (‘still bitter I didn’t get in first time round’) and of course, travelling abroad for a year (‘‘I’ll get a bird tattoo on my shoulder and ‘find myself’ in South-East Asia.”) All are great choices, depending on your gastric resilience to Indonesian street food. But, by far the most stomach-churning option is one that I witnessed for myself recently in a pub– through the gloomy real ale candlelight, I caught a glimpse into the tragic world of the Corporate Twentysomething.
Two chaps in their late twenties sat across from me – one smartly (and smarmily) groomed and clad in a brilliant white lambswool jumper, the other a more portly, bawdy Falstaffian type– a perfect tech industry double act. I, the bright eyed undergrad, naturally asked them about their career choices, and was totally unprepared for the audial shell shock that I was about to receive. A cascade of tech and finance jargon ensued – there was talk of Ofcom, market resurgences, needles being moved and tyrannical Managing Directors. They sang with glee about the Game of Thrones-esque dynamic within their offices, the seductive lure of rival companies vying for their (oh so!) valuable workplace qualities, and their undying loyalty to current employers. At one point, I made the mistake of posing a token question about my suitability for a career in consulting post uni, and sat amazed at the boorish, elongated reply.
‘No, I totally, literally, genuinely believe you could do that…’, said they very unconvincingly, as if a grad job at EY was akin to getting ‘made’ in the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. Twenty minutes later I sat half-comatose and drooling as they ranted on, wondering how many times I could pretend to nod affirmatively and put the now empty pint glass to my lips before they realised I wanted to slap them both across the cheeks simultaneously.
What grew increasingly clear, however, was that while they showed a healthy interest and ambition in their work, all the laughter and merriment they shared seemed to revolve entirely around their profession, their identity. Whether it was jokingly accusing one another of being ‘industry moles’, or their ill-placed hubris about ‘acting as a voice for the industry’ – their lives seemed to start and end with this strange, nondescript career. And, joking aside, there was a real sadness to think less than a decade ago they rolled into university as eighteen-year-olds – outlaws into a lively Western Honky Tonk. Now they have business cards and use words like ‘transposability’.
On a serious note, the traditional journey into these types of industries – the tech startup, the finance world, be what it may – seems to me a very sudden descent into a rather grey adult life. It seems too cruel a leap–straight from third year into the jaws of corporatism–and not one many seem to recover themselves from. I have indeed been tempted by the much lauded ‘year in industry.’ It has its benefits– a good and reliable salary, a growing CV, and all the fun of life in the city. But on an aesthetic level it seems so damn sad, an untimely rupture from the umbilical cord of youth.
Do me a favour– leave it a few years, at least. Stay in education a little longer. Do a Masters for no reason. Be the 24 year old in the student bar that is now part of the furniture. Smoke those roll-ups. Go to those god-awful festivals. Start a band and try to ‘make it big.’ Get your contrived, semi-literate middle class poetry published. Drink Echo Falls from the bottle. Resist!
