It’s hard to let go of dreams that aren’t working out for you. I’ve realised in my own journey that holding onto my dream was going to create a lot more problems for me and it would result in my not being happy. I’m writing this partly so that I can come back to it every time I get doubts or regrets about pursuing the path I’m on, and I’m sure I’ll write about it more as I progress through my studies over the next few years.
My Background In Music
I trained in music since I was a child: I learnt several different instruments, I took GCSE music, then A-level music and A-level music technology. I worked incredibly hard to get the grades I got and I was able to get into my first choice of university and course: studying audio recording and production at the university of Hertfordshire. I worked myself to shreds at university. I did all the extra work available, I took on work experience relevant in my industry, offered freelance work to gain contacts… I thought I was on the right track. I’d been told all this time that it’s almost impossible to make a living in the music industry but I thought that if I just worked hard and got good grades and relevant experience, I would reap the rewards.
That’s unfortunately not how the music industry works. My experience is that if you want to work in the creative industries, who you know is more important than what you know, and you have to be comfortable taking risks. And to build that network of contacts, you have to have social skills. That’s where I fall flat. It doesn’t matter how good you are at your job or how many skills you have if no one wants to work with you.
I left university with a First with Honours, which was nice considering I’d sacrificed my mental health to get it and needed months of therapy afterwards. But no one wanted to hire me. I was unemployed for over a year until I was rejected at yet another interview for a music technology job and they offered me a full time teaching position instead. I felt like I didn’t have a choice, considering I was going insane from being unemployed. It turned out that I’m pretty good at teaching! It was unfortunate that I hated it and couldn’t see it being a long term fit for me. I like working with kids, I enjoyed sharing my musical knowledge, but hate the level of behavioural management. As someone who hates confrontation it was very difficult for me to give out sanctions and call out bad behaviour, including bullying. Teaching is mentally exhausting for me and I can’t see myself doing it until I retire; mental health and depression would just catch up with me in the end.
What Are My Life Priorities?
I had to think about my priorities in life. I have always wanted to buy a house. That has been my biggest goal since I can remember. To manage my depression, I need a regular routine, consistent work and a stable income. I wanted to do a PhD, like my dad. By carrying on trying to get a foothold in the music industry, it was pretty unlikely that I would get those things. Teaching would provide those things and it would be so easy to do a PGCE. It’s a shame that I hate teaching because I genuinely think I’m good at it. So what then?
Why Nursing?
Last year, I decided that I was going to retrain into nursing. Why nursing? This was largely influenced by the pandemic. With my LGBTQ+ youth work, I’ve been really fascinated in sexual health, and researching health concerns and surgeries, which was something I was outright disgusted by at school. As a kid, I hated biology. I was the only kid in class that had to leave because I almost fainted whilst dissecting a kidney. With my manager last year, we’d signed onto a sex education training course for my youth and I was incredibly excited! I was watching the show Sex Education on Netflix and I loved Gillian Anderson’s character, Dr Jean Milburn, a sex and relationship therapist. All these things together inspired me to go into nursing. Currently I’m looking at sexual health nursing, but I’m also considering practice nursing or children’s nursing. I feel like there are so many avenues I could go down. I always enjoyed going to see the sexual health nurses at university (I saw them a lot due to the, erm, nature of my social life) because they had great senses of humour and found I actually enjoyed talking about sex and all the sex that goes along with it.
Now that my depression is being managed, I’m able to embrace my academic nature which I wasn’t able to do at school when I wasn’t medicated. And I love studying! With nursing there are endless avenues I could pursue, and do training and studying for.
What’s next?
My plan so far is to go to college in September to complete my Access To Health course, and then complete a degree in adult nursing but that could all change. There’s a lot of different pathways I could take to specialise. If I still want to go the sexual health route at that point, I can do a masters in sexual health, or if not I could do the masters to extend my degree to child nursing as well. I would love to do a PhD, although I’m not sure exactly what about yet. After working my way up the career ladder, I might go back into teaching/lecturing when I’m old and decrepit, although focusing on college and university level rather than 11-16 year olds.
How am I going to fund all this?
Student finance England will fund up to 4 years of university, and I’ve already used up 3 of those with my first degree. And that college course isn’t free either. From what I’ve researched, I can add the college course fee (£3000) onto my current student finance. If I continue onto university to complete an undergraduate healthcare course, the college fee gets wiped. Because it’s a healthcare course, student finance England will fund me for longer than the usual 4 years, and I’ll be eligible for NHS funding. It’s at times like this that I am so thankful for the NHS, for student loans that I’m not required to pay back until I’m earning enough, and that I live in a country where I can easily make a drastic career and educational change like this.
- Optimistic Bill
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