A 2020 Grad Experience

Obtaining a degree to be proud of takes a lot of hard work. Each year millions of students across the world rightly celebrate this achievement with their friends and family in the city they’ve called home for the previous 3+ years of their lives. They invariably get to enjoy the Summer, drawing a line in the sand, and transition from student to graduate. Many of them travel, some have jobs lined up, others begin trying to figure out what to do next. For the graduating class of 2020, this has all been very different.

When the lockdown announcement was made in March I returned to my family home in Anglesey to carry on with my studies. As a student at Cardiff University, the thought of being confined in a student house in a city didn’t appeal to me much, especially with the outdoor countryside space that was on offer at home. I was fortunate to even have such an option available to me, and know that thousands of students across the country spent their lockdown in cramped student halls, away from their families.

Almost a year later I still find myself here on Anglesey. Being in a safe environment with all my family is a very privileged position to be in, but when I started my Masters degree back in September 2019 it’s not quite where I imagined myself being 6 months after graduating.

The desk in my room has become a constant, it’s where I studied for my A levels half a decade ago, where I completed my Masters, and it’s now where I find myself every day working from home for my new job.