I did Accountancy – Do you want fries with that?

By: Farah Khan

One day all of us get separated from one another, people get married, some move abroad and some pass away. Days, months, years pass, and our contact becomes rare. One day our children see the old photos or pick up an old valentine card and ask, ‘Who is this?’ And we smile will a wistful quiet smile and say “…it was with them that I had the best days of my life…my uni days”

I don’t know whether It was the clear unmarked future that lay ahead of me or sitting on the grass on Uni Avenue with a 17p can and a 10p Wham bar thinking one day I will graduate with honours and become a world changer! I wore my hair long then, and it would gently ruffle in the carefree wind. I could eat ketchup chips everyday with chocolate eclairs and it would never catch up with me. The world has never heard of gluten. I was at my prime. Nothing was impossible for me, I hadn’t been beaten down by the endless eight-page-long application forms of glossy graduates working in Accounting firms that silently ruled the world. I didn’t have to worry about the world – it revolved around me.

In my first year at Hogwarts (a.k.a. Glasgow University) I learned how to survive on beans on chips and stay out in student digs as late as possible. My strict Pakistani upbringing taught me to mistrust everyone and iron cast excuse was needing to leave the house. Luckily, I had the best one…I must go to study! It always opened the doors to freedom. On realising this all my friends solemnly made a pact to see each other at the resits and fail at least one subject, making sure we returned a month before the new semester started.

There after a summer travelling over Europe, a few dodgy jobs in retail and some even worse ones in call centres, I would enter the realms of student life with a flourish every coming year. I was convinced I was the most well-read intellectual the world of accounting needed, move up I’m ready to take over. The bitter cold of Glasgow never reached my bones, I didn’t need a North Face jacket the frayed denim jacket and simple flats were adequate. Heck even flip flops were fine, who cares about hail stones! Each friend I made was on the same wavelength with the same lipstick and laughed till we wet ourselves, at the same jokes. After what felt like a blink of an eye (well four years to be exact). It was over, and I was hurtled in the world of 9-5 drudgery and broken dreams. I no longer believed I might be on the cover of The Financial Times for buying shares in a small company that exploded into massive global success. In my new stage of life, I was at best mediocre. Then I realised everyone, everywhere in every job was a failed graduate that had lost the path of their dreams and ended up working paid the bills. They were the best of times, they were the worst of times.

Pick up the phone/text/email…lets write the future don’t stop chasing the dream, contact me, Amina MWRC Enterprise Officer, and I will help you start the new business of your university dreams!! farah@mwrc.org.uk