Graduating University During the Pandemic
During my three years at Leeds Arts University, I have inevitably been
thinking about my graduation. I feel like I was drip-fed images of
graduations throughout my childhood in films and TV shows. This led to
some pretty high expectation of my graduation from my 12 year old
self.
When I started university, I saw students from a number of universities across Leeds in their iconic
gowns and caps, all looking mesmerising in their formal wear. I stayed
behind a year at sixth form to complete my Art Foundation course, so most of
my friends graduated the year before. Every time that I saw glimpses
of their graduation celebrations on social media I kept thinking "that will
be me soon." I wouldn't go so far as to say that I
had planned what I was going to wear, but I had definitely browsed earrings
that would be suitable for such an occasion...
Looking back, I felt like I was in a little bubble of university
culture. All I could focus on was finishing my degree, and looking
forward to seeing my family at graduation. I have never really been
someone who keeps up to date with the news, not because I am indifferent,
but because it tends to make me feel low. I will inevitably pick up on
news stories from conversations with others, or social media, but I must
admit that I can be quite clueless sometimes (and I need to work on
this). So when COVID-19 started to come up in conversations, I did not
really understand the scope of the situation. It was only when it
started to directly impact me I realised this was a much more serious
situation than I had led myself to naively believe.
I cannot begin to comprehend the horrendous impact COVID-19 has had on
people all around the world, and having graduation postponed is a tiny crumb
of a problem. However, I wanted to start an illustration blog as a way
of documenting my progression and learning, as well as using it as a space
to reflect on my university experience before I forget it. I am a
sentimental person after all, and love to collect things that remind me of
memories, or to write about them before they fade completely. So I cannot skip over COVID-19 and the impact it
has had on my last year of university. The future seems quite
uncertain and I have been feeling very nervous about the prospect of
trying to start a career during a pandemic, and being a natural worrier has not helped...
So, although I feel like a have been thrown into the post-uni abyss (with the delightful addition of a pandemic) before I am quite ready, I am just trying to keep busy. I am regularly
drawing and setting mini briefs for myself to add to my portfolio, as well as not putting pressure
on myself to make 'amazing' or 'perfect' work at this time. I think that there is a big expectation from graduates to come out of university and straight into a job (and more importantly a job that links to their degree.) COVID-19 has basically frozen everything in place, and it is strange to graduate into a national lockdown. It is certainly not what I imagined the end of my university experience to look like, and a general lingering air of panic and doom is creeping its way into my thoughts. So I am going to
attempt to make pizza dough from scratch soon, so that is something to look
forward to!*
*EDIT: the pizza was amazing, and I will never be able to buy those pre-made pizza dough tubes again... Here is the recipe I followed for anyone that is interested:
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