They say ‘time flies when you’re having fun’ and my god is that true.

Next week I start my last term at university. My last flutter in education before entering the big scary world of work. I am utterly gobsmacked it has gone so fast. I still remember being that scared fresher being lovingly deposited in university halls by my parents back in 2010 with the whole experience to look forward to. Cliché aside, it really does feel like yesterday.

I won’t pretend I’m not scared as it all comes to a close. Canterbury feels more like a second home every day and I will be truly sad to leave. After nearly three years living in the same place, with the same people, you can’t help but grow attached. Canterbury is beautiful. With it’s cobbled streets and old fashioned sweet shops, it has that quaint English style down to the letter. I have met all manner of people here; friends I will stay in touch with for many years to come and others – quite frankly – I will be glad to see the back of.

But I am not one to dwell on the past, here’s to the future.

After three years of university designed to equip me for the working world I will shortly be forced to stand on my own two feet and join the masses. You hear mixed stories of university graduates, with an equal balance of positive and negative slants. The media keeps telling us there aren’t any graduate jobs, that first class degrees don’t really matter and all us students are lazy layabouts. I beg to differ here. Okay so no, not all of my graduated friends are now working in their ideal career. Actually very few are. But as always, there are exceptions to the rule. I know people who charmed their way onto incredible graduate schemes guaranteeing them a future job.

I know this is rare and I’m not delusional. I don’t expect to graduate university and be inundated with job offers – though it would be nice. I do however resent being referred to as a ‘lazy layabout’. I’ve always known I wanted to get into journalism and I have also always known that it is an incredibly competitive industry, notoriously hard to get in to. Work experience is mandatory though a little hard to find when in order to be offered work experience, most companies require work experience. Go figure.

I have been lucky. I spent six weeks at a newspaper last summer and was thrilled to be asked back this January. I am however fully aware that I am, not to put it too strongly, free labour. Which for now is fine with me. I know I need as much work experience as possible to make my CV stand out from the thousands of applicants just like me fighting for those few graduate scheme spots or job offers.

So I will continue to work hard. I will continue to badger publication after publication for work experience and internships, and I will fill out countless application forms and send out hundreds of CV’s. Because I want to work.

For now I will enjoy my last term at university and make the most of it before the battle for jobs hits me like a tonne of bricks. But when it does hit, I’ll be ready.

Bring it on.