There’s still days when I think that this is it, and from tomorrow, it’s back to university, I’m done pretending, or that the alarm clock is going to go off and I’ll wake and it’ll still be February 6th, 2006, and I have yet to turn up for my first day, or it’s May 21st, 2005, and I’ve got to fly to Sydney today for my interview. After a year and three months, I’m still not sure if it’s real, that what I’m doing makes a difference to someone’s life and all that money in my bank account is there for a reason. I’m still younger than the new grads this year, by a year or two yet, and I’ll be younger than the grads next year too (though they’ll be closer). I’m ahead of schedule, dammit.
And I’m not sure if I’ll ever shake the feeling, at least until I’m leading or delivering a reasonably large project. Am I alone? From the sounds of it, not really, but is that a symptom of the job or of the expectations we have? If I were to look critically at myself, I’d see that I do have skills that I didn’t have when I turned up that fateful Monday morning, that I have this body of knowledge and an opinion that is value, even if I occasionally have too big opinion of it (I’m working on it, ok).
It’s real, and it’s bloody terrifying. Stay at uni as long as you can!