Adjusting to life post university

[girtongal]

DD has finished her undergraduate and post graduate degrees. She's moved to London for a grad job. She's 6 months or so in, and is doing ok. Not amazingly (she says) but not horrendously either. She's finding it a big change going from living in a smaller city to living in London. She isn't a big city girl, but all the jobs are there.

She also finds it hard to meet the face time culture of her office (she's a lawyer) and the long hours. She also says she feels that whilst money isn't tight, she thought (perhaps naively!) that she would feel better off than she does.

Is it normal for it to be difficult to adjust to post uni life? I did a vocational degree so going straight to work in the hospitals where I trained was quite normal.

@girtongal I'm sort of bumping your thread as I have 2 DCs who are post-uni, currently doing law conversion training but needing to live back at home and at least one of them is struggling to adjust to post-uni life. They thrived on the busy, structured, social-life-on-tap, uni environment and are desperate to head straight to the city and law careers but are currently in the bottle neck of applying for TCs, so far without success.

Both my DCs seem to think that life in the big city with lucrative careers is the end goal but I wonder whether this is a false vision of the future and it'll be more an endless, mundane hamster-wheel of work and exhaustion and not enough fun.

One of mine may struggle with the discipline of full working days or more. The other will thrive on this but want time for extracurricular and social activities too. So I'm interested to hear more about your DDs experience, further down the line and also from other parents about their DCs lives post-uni, in these current times.

Hi @girtongal

Yes, I think it's quite normal to find it difficult to adjust from university life, where you effectively move from a life where, to a large extent, you define your schedule to one where there's a pre-ordained schedule of sorts, Monday to Friday, i.e. getting up, going to work, and working to evening time - and possibly beyond.

The biggest thing I found when I first started work - London professional services firm approx. 30 years ago - was how tiring it was. I just wasn't used to getting up at 7am, to dress professionally, commute into the office and then work all day long. Winter was especially bad as it was really my first proper experience of not really seeing that much daylight.

Re this sentence She also finds it hard to meet the face time culture of her office (she's a lawyer) and the long hours I find that quite interesting as surely one key aspect of being a lawyer is that it involves a lot of face time, whether that be with your clients or your colleagues.

Re the money comment, I think that's just a factor of living in London - housing and commuting drain money from your salary pretty quickly, plus I'm assuming the student loan repayments may have kicked in.

I really hope as we move into Spring and the days become lighter/longer, things improve for her. If they don't, then there's absolutely no harm in changing career direction - there are plenty of opportunities outside of law firms for qualified lawyers. The key thing is that she is happy.

I remember a friend from uni, who was a year behind me, visiting me about a year after I left. I had a job and a mortgage (Maggie Thatcher years). She declared I was 'no fun' anymore because I didn't want to stay up all night or go out on a work night. Having to get up and be somewhere at 9 am, be professional etc was too foreign to her who was still enjoying student life. I didn't find the adjustment that hard until she said that, and then I wondered if I was indeed now immediately middle aged and no fun! But I was eager to learn and get on, I also think the culture was you got on with things - you didn't expect to 'love' everything about a job all the time.

This is honestly just a case of "Welcome to the Real World." Your daughter has some growing up to do, which she will, so just let her get on with it. The fact is, most of what we have to do as adults isn't all that much fun.

Law is a demanding job - especially as a new starter in a big London firm. At least 2 of my friends quit law after several years due to the hideous working conditions.
One was expected to regularly sleep in the office when working on a big case as the office attitude was that you didn't go home until the work was done.
The other stayed longer but has pretty much quit in her 50's. Had she had kids it would probably have been sooner.
It's a lucrative career in the longer term but not for the faint hearted.

It can be a shock to the system, accessing the real world, and I think more so now that a lot of people may be working from home. I loved the office environment early in my career and the social side of things you gained from being there, but my post-university children aren't getting the same experience. My daughter is in London, and whilst she has lots of friends there, they're mostly in their own homes, dotted around the city, rather than commuting in and then everyone meeting up somewhere central. She seems to spend more time travelling to see friends than she does travelling to work, but she puts a lot of effort into seeing friends.

Law is hard. Not the best career for a good work/life balance, especially now you might not be having the opportunities we had for making friends in the work place.

My graduate DD started work in 2020 as a Big 4 graduate trainee so it was obviously rather different to the norm - all WFH initially, and the hours probably a bit less than they would otherwise have been. I think it is important that DC are realistic about what potentially high flying careers in finance / accountancy / law entail. Working hours can be long, studying for professional exams at the same time is challenging, and if they are not prepared for this it can all go wrong very quickly.

My DD had done her homework, knew what to expect and is a self-disciplined, hard worker who likes to challenge herself. She is also ambitious and prepared to put in the effort to achieve a lucrative career. There were times when between work and study she was doing 16 hour days, 7 days a week for several weeks at a time. Pay off is that she is now qualified, in a job where the hours are more manageable and with excellent prospects, has bought a house with her partner, and has sufficient spare time to take up marathon running (as I said, she likes a challenge!)

I remember DD saying to me probably six months into full time work after uni "this adulting is pretty shit isn't it?".

Going from having no real financial obligations, a home that you went back to for long holidays (and probably your washing and cooking done) with lots of good friends in the same house or on the doorstep to paying your rent, working long hours, having limited annual leave and not having time, money or enthusiasm for a social life can be tough.

They get used to it eventually and adapt.

oh I remember well this time and feeling. So difficult to adjust to the lack of structure lectures/tutorials gave. I lived in the 'real worlds' for about 2 years before going back to do a PhD and have remained there since as an academic

My DC are recent grads, living and working in London.
One is working for an engineering consultancy and loves her post uni life. Many of her uni friends are also recent grads in London (lawyers, banking, consultancy) and they definitely work hard play hard - much as they did at uni.
DS is on a competitive banking grad scheme and works hard during the week. He loves having money and more free time than at uni. He does return to his uni town quite frequently at the weekends as his closest friends are in the fourth years of their degrees and he misses the place. They are planning a London house share in September so I imagine he will feel a bit more settled in London then.

It can do - it was not having long holidays which was the main shock for me.

Otoh, DD was on a tough course and seems to have much more free time now - her job is fairly 9-5 (small engineering consultancy, her manager like a decent work life balance), not too bad a commute, and she stayed in or near her uni town. She joined, and now helps run, a uni club she'd not had time for as a student!

I'm a solicitor - it's pretty tough in the training contract years. lots of constant changes and learning - in some seats you feel like you fit in and in others like a fish out of water. She won't be alone.

Though law is well paid, the salary during training contract doesn't stretch as far as you might think if you are in london

It's better post qualification but also she could then move to a smaller city, go in house etc. I'm now in the Big4 and work life balance much better than city law.