Emma Beaumont

What does it feel like to be young, gifted and grounded?

Emma Beaumont interviews several young people leaving university

issue 17 October 2009

David Beaumont, 21
‘I’d thought that a final year economics student at the LSE would get a job easily. But I’ve found it impossible to get even an unpaid internship. My plan after graduation is to get out: to travel, funded by a low-paid job. Getting on the career ladder at this stage seems a lost cause. It feels like I have had to delay my life.’

Jessica Dickinson, 24
‘I’m stuck in an unhappy relationship because I simply cannot afford to move out of the flat I share with my boyfriend. There doesn’t seem to be a market for degrees in government studies. The outlook is incredibly depressing and I can’t really see things improving.’

Edward Gibson, 21
‘I think that my generation has been given a healthy dose of reality. Before people presumed that their degrees were the key to the futures they felt they were entitled to.

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