Over the years, university stopped being just a place to learn and became more about something to perform.
We curate ourselves as practically perfect on our online profiles, being “thrilled to announce” or “grateful to have been selected”, while carefully listing leadership roles and transferable skills. A group project suddenly becomes “collaborating in a cross-functional team” and a society event is reframed and labelled as “delivering strategic initiatives”. Even personal growth feels like it needs to be condensed into a bullet point.
But at 2am in the library, this façade drops. We’re tired as we reread the same paragraph five times, feeling less like future leaders and more like unsure students just simply trying to understand something difficult.
The gap between your LinkedIn persona and the real you can feel immense and part of that comes from the pressure to quantify everything. What did you achieve and what skills did you gain? As soon as I started my second year and began thinking about work placements, lecturers and workshop staff drilled into us the importance of having a LinkedIn account to demonstrate our value to future employers. Now, I sometimes catch myself choosing opportunities because they would look impressive online rather than because I’m genuinely interested. Learning that can’t be marketed suddenly starts to feel like wasted time.
Scrolling doesn’t help. There’s always a quiet pressure in watching everyone else secure placements, internships, and experiences abroad. Even if you feel happy for them, comparison can kick in. Am I behind? Should I be doing more? I’ve felt that productivity guilt before. Although my LinkedIn profile is filled with training, volunteering and work experience, I still feel as though I haven’t done enough to compete with my peers. I’ve completed most of the staple opportunities the university offers: career mentoring, the Cardiff Award, and Green Impact auditing.. yet the feeling of being behind still lingers.
In the end, maybe we aren’t performing because we want to but because we think we have to. Afterall, university should shape us, not just market us.
Words by Alanah Blayney
Ambition culture feels great right? I mean the big plans you make (mainly at night) for who you want to be and how you want to present yourself to the world. And the thought is exciting.
Applying for insights or internships. Creating social media plans so you can grow and become a digital nomad. Writing posts on LinkedIn or setting up a blog. Networking with people in your chosen industry.
But then these thoughts, need to turn into actions and that’s where it becomes slightly less fun and more daunting. What opportunities do I actually want to experience? And how best to be noticed so I can have the career I dream of? Do I even really know what my personal brand is or what I want it to be?
The morning comes around and I feel burnt out. It’s the beginning of weak 6 in Uni but I am mentally in week 4- the reading list is piling up and don’t get me started on the assignments. I barely have the energy to do the thing I signed up (and paid for) achieving my degree.
Ambition culture is motivating but the stark contrast, that is winter, makes everything exhausting (especially if you have seasonal affective disorder).
And the really stressful thing is, it feels like all this has to be accomplished by the time you graduate.
Higher education isn’t turning into a performance, employers expect a personal brand and it’s a reality we have to accept. Gone are the days where having a degree was seen as enough. We are in a world where experience and who you are visually on LinkedIn and (for some jobs) your socials matters.
So, if identifying as an ‘intern’ and making it your whole personality gets you a career at the end, go for it. If filming yourself at the library to speed up later on a reel in the name of ‘aesthetic study’ makes you feel ill, then don’t. Your personal brand should fit into who you want to be at the end of university, something that feels authentic to you.
Words by Meg Elmer
Featured image courtesy of Francis Bouffard via Unsplash. No changes have been made to this image. Image license found here.
