Today, I woke up at 6:30am. Tomorrow, I will again wake up at 6:30. Then it’s the weekend. But the week after that I will be arising at 6:30 am every day. Yes my dear friends, the time has come for me to abandon my indulgent uni holidays and ripped jeans, for I indeed started my graduate job today.
I will spare you the details of my terrible sense of direction which caused me to ask where the ladies room was on 3 separate occasions! Or the design of my new work shirts that I received from the physio department in the hospital.
Despite the whole 6:30 am thing, and the fact that I won’t get holidays for a year, I’m kind of excited about the full time work prospect. See, full time work for me is like an extension of my physio pracs at uni, only I get paid and have a great deal more autonomy (or responsibility, however you want to look at it.) The hard yards of a uni education for the past 4 years are coming into fruition. Ah, it is moments like these that my decision to do an intense vocational course has paid off!!
Throughout my uni days, there was always a tinge of regret in my voice as I tried to contribute to my friends debate about the significance of Freud’s theories or the imperialistic ways of France on Algeria in the 1940’s. Perhaps it was not so much regret as a longing to be able to choose my own subjects. After enrolling in the physio course I was told when, how and what subjects I would study. Discussing the evidence of ultrasound to treat carpal tunnel syndrome on a pregnant woman doesn’t usually attract an audience in the social scene.
But now I am retracting any doubts I may have had because this graduate job will require me to use every last piece of information I have learnt at uni. (Except perhaps for Newton’s 3 laws. See, already forgotten what they are!) It is honestly quite rewarding to be putting my skills and knowledge into practice.
I imagine the same idea applies to other vocational courses such as architecture, medicine, engineering, vet science, dentistry etc.
I suppose when deciding what you want to do at uni, you have to determine what you want out of your degree. (Or find ways to combine the vocational aspect with some flexible subjects, like going a combined degree of arts/engineering.)
Stay tuned for more updates from the office (although it’s not really an office. I just wanted to sound important. It’s more like stay tuned for more updates from the small little hospital outside of Sydney.)