So much for my brilliant career...

[frogs]

One of my contemporaries at university is now Leader of the Opposition. Humph.

And that's just the icing on the cake: other contemporaries include BBC foreign correspondent, high-profile barrister, Labour MP and ex-junior minister, award-winning theatre director and deputy editor of a national newspaper. And that's just off the top of my head -- I'm sure the list could be extended.

Anyone else feeling outclassed?

Frogs - Were any of these contemporaries friends though? I am sure there must have been a fair few at University at the same time as me who have gone on to remarkable careers but I didn't know them then so wouldn't recognise their names now. I trawl through the college chronicle every year but there doesn't seem to be anyone who has made it big. It was all girls when I started though so maybe your comment re:females who don't have children is spot on as the birth announcements section is always rather lengthy!

DH's best friend was head-hunted by Microsoft to head up a design team. Think he left school with one A-level and probably earns in excess of £1million now. Whenever a press conference is held DH and I try to spot the friend standing behind Bill Gates. I grow ever more convinced that success is often a matter of luck (and contacts in the right places). They should teach networking at school in place of careers.

essex famous alumni are here Look

ps baronness thatcher has been taken to hospital feeling faint perhpas she's heard about Carol winning I'm a

hey Dinosaur, if you look this way again, I knew Nick Robinson quite well at univ, does that put you in 1983-1986 like me?

Yes it isn't terribly impressive is it zippi?

o ker-christ tell me about it
I have two words for you
RACHEL WEISZ

at this thread. one of my contemporaries at university has an enormously successful Oxbridge academic career combined with practising as a commercial barrister . at 28 .

yes but are they happy

I would imagine so, quite frankly. If I'd written an award-winning novel I would be.

Yes, comforting though it is to imagine all these successful people must be miserable, it's unlikely to be the case. David Cameron sounded pretty upbeat yesterday. The novelist with the baby book has always sounded as if she badly needed to get over herself. But then again, where did she find the time to introspect that much?

Yoyo, sadly I did know most of these people, though only a couple were actual friends, and I'm not in touch with them any more. I think the college structure meant that if you had anything approaching a normal social life and got involved in extracurricular stuff, you ended up knowing a hell of a lot of people from all sorts of different subjects. Not well, maybe, but enough to think "Bloody hell, what have they got that I haven't?" when they start crawling out of the woodwork 15 years later.

Talent, perhaps? Ambition? Or wives, more likely.

hovely - yes!!

yes I was just trying a little crude amateur psychology
actually I can cope with all the journalists, politicians, actors and stinkingly rich people among my contemporaries, but this one fills me with seering jealousy fir some reason

mi - please email me with the name of the novelist as I'm too thick to work it out for myself

My six month old ds is the absolute spitting image of William Hague.

Also at least one college contemporary now a front bench Tory MP (nothing as exalted as DC). No Labour folk, but I guess that they will be older on average as the Tories will have had a clear out after 1997.

I'm a few years younger and all my contemporaries seem to be journos.

We're all 30/31 at the mo and there seems to be a real split between the career-ambitious and the family minded work-life balance people. The only highly successful women I know under about 40 are childless.

The highly successful men all married young - I think they were looking for wives quite deliberately at college.

frogs - I don't think I can blame it on lack of a wife in my case - I think it's more that I foolishly signed up to do something that really wasn't quite "me" - as much to try and make my dad happy as anything else - of course it has failed dismally because I'm not a partner making half a million plus a year, so I'm still a failure in his eyes! There's a lesson there somewhere...

Then again, if I'd followed my dream and become, say, the Guardian's woman in South Asia or wherever - I probably wouldn't have the DSs, or at least, not so many DSs.

is a baaad thing

I have contemporaries who are multi millionaires and famous etc, also those who are virtually in the gutter. I don't really give a toss which they are! I don't think you can really compare your life with someone else's in this way

at your dad, dino. Trying to please parents is a perilous path, I fear. When I got the letter saying I'd got into Oxford I phoned my Dad, out of my mind with excitement, and his response was, "Oh." Followed after a considerable pause by, "That's nice." Grrrr.

Silentbite, I'm not envious of these people I'm perfectly happy with my work-life balance, I am moderately succesful doing specialised consultancy work, and have three lovely kids. There's nothing I'd change particularly though a sofa without ribena stains would be nice, and a Caribbean holiday or two wouldn't go amiss. I'm just variously impressed or mildly bemused at the achievements of some of my contemporaries, and occasionally I wonder whether I should have made a bit more effort.

at your dad, dino. Trying to please parents is a perilous path, I fear. When I got the letter saying I'd got into Oxford I phoned my Dad, out of my mind with excitement, and his response was, "Oh." Followed after a considerable pause by, "That's nice." Grrrr.

Silentbite, I'm not envious of these people I'm perfectly happy with my work-life balance, I am moderately succesful doing specialised consultancy work, and have three lovely kids. There's nothing I'd change particularly though a sofa without ribena stains would be nice, and a Caribbean holiday or two wouldn't go amiss. I'm just variously impressed or mildly bemused at the achievements of some of my contemporaries, and occasionally I wonder whether I should have made a bit more effort.

Yes, perils of being an oldest child too, I think. My sister and brother had a rather more relaxed time of it!

I am quite envious, especially of those who are now churning out mummylit and living glamorously kitten-heeled lives. I realise this is Bad Thing and Emotionally Damaging, but I still am. However, I suspect that may actually encourage me to put digit to keyboard and do some Proper Writing.

My children are nice, though .

yes, and you have a very good christmas name too

ggg - the guy that you worked with that's now head of C4/5 - are his initials SM? Irish surname?

I'm still amazed by how strongly I feel about this thread - from all kinds of angles. Maybe it's upbringing (Scottish soberness and so on), maybe it's because I have come across a fair number of your high profile people, maybe it's because of the enormous respect I have for people on this thread, but I feel so so strongly that material success/public recognition just is so the wrong measure of integrity, personal worth, everything that matters - so you lot are not outclassed, or outclassable, so there.

(Self-actualisation. That's what it's all about, of course.)

LJ

errrrr MI

you love India Kni-ight! you love India Kni-ight!