I became a Civil Servant late last year and have learned much since. The inside scoop into managing the pandemic (and concurrent risks that may pile) provides a very different context. As with much of government, policy is very much a reactive process, with seldom pro-active opportunities or strategies in place. Mostly it signifies the extreme lack of emergency preparedness in 2019/2020 Britain and the need for a forced proactive preparedness for 2021 onwards. None of which however, solve the gaps in the growth of previous students and academics (as I was up until July 2020), stunting them both socially and mentally. I fell on my feet in my graduate job, but I am very much aware of both the luck and rarity of my situation. Students have been vastly mistreated and grossly unsupported throughout this period, careers and career advice is virtually bare and the already hard-to-get graduate jobs are ever more challenging and competitive. I strongly worry about the future of graduate careers (and any careers for that matter of fact) for the younger generations going forward and constantly feel that now I have a job, I am stuck in it because to leave in this current climate would be wild and unstable – the very opposite to what I had hoped as a fresh graduate entering the working world.
Submitted 19/02/21
Dr Kristopher Lovell 