The thing about graduating is that once you’ve done it, you’ve done it. What comes next?

One of my enduring memories from school was when in Year 7, my English teacher told us that – as with the enigmatic Joss Grey of A Greengage Summer – we would be our most beautiful at the age of 16. Reader, I was pumped. Unfortunately, and perhaps in hindsight, predictably, 16 came and went with a disappointing lack of earth-shattering beauty. After I dried my tears and petrol-bombed said teacher’s house, I moved on and set my sights on a far greater mythologised literary icon: unay.

Such cycles of hope and realisation (read: disappointment) were characteristic of my adolescence. With the future being set out in bite-sized chunks, I could always identify the next milestone at which everything would Become Amazing. Arriving at Cambridge was obviously going to be the start of the three most romantic, intense and fulfilling years of my life. I was going to have multiple handsome boyfriends, a few girlfriends, spend most of my time in smoke-filled rooms of heated discussion or having sex on rooftops, and also probably get a First. The future beyond graduation was less clearly conceptualised, but after such a roaring initiation into adulthood, post-uni life would surely sort itself out.

Fast-forward three years, and here I am at the same desk on which I studied for my A-Levels, writing a self-indulgent and ultimately immaterial article for a newspaper servicing a university that I am no longer part of. “Move the fuck on, Amy!”, I hear you cry, but to such naysayers I reply: I’m getting a byline out of this; you’re the one wasting your precious youth reading it.

The most troubling part about graduating is that the “what’s next?” question that so dominated my youth is no longer answerable. Some of my friends have gone into grad schemes or stayed in education, so bully for them, but for the majority of us, there is a distinct lack of an idea about what the fuck is going on. I count myself lucky that I have a job that I quite enjoy, and I am even luckier – financially, at least – that I have a home in London that I can stay in for a bit to avoid sinking my measly salary into extortionate rents.

But on a more existential level (and really, what other levels matter??? Don’t look at me – I’ll see myself out), I now suddenly and unprecedentedly have no idea what I am working towards, no idea how to find out what that is, and no idea what to do to get there. My biggest fear is that I will wake in in fifty years time in much the same position I am in now, except even fewer people will care, and I will wonder why I didn’t change the world, or at least my bit of it, etc. etc., sob sob, tiny violins.

There is also the issue that in having the wholly undeserved and unearned benefit of a place to live that has central heating and a mostly full fridge, I find myself regressing into my 16-year-old self. Obviously, I now have a bit more financial independence and a social life beyond Hampstead Heath and overly lavish 18th birthday parties (R.I.P.), but certain habits that do not befit a young working woman remain: I am far too liberal in my use of expensive olive oil, and I still have never paid my own utility bill.

There are upsides, though. Upside number one: I am no longer at Cambridge. Glorious as it can be, I do not miss the bizarre veneration of self-flagellation, the archaic traditions or the wankers. Wankers are everywhere, but they are much harder to avoid in Cambridge.

Upside number two: I am not that far away from Cambridge. Everyone does something a bit different after graduating, but many of these paths were started on at university, including my own. I truly believe that Cambridge gives you an unprecedented opportunity to start anything for yourself, do something new, and meet interesting people. Graduation is just a continuation of this. Life on the other side is daunting and amorphous, but being able to witness the initiatives like the Ain’t I A Woman video series, or the Immoral Sciences Club – remind me that our generation isn’t always as powerless as we feel. Suddenly, not knowing what you are doing next doesn’t seem like the worst thing in the world.