Choose Life.

Surprisingly, the best piece of careers advice I've received to date was from George Monbiot. In his inspiring article, Choose Life, propagating his anti-corporate sentiments and encouraging disheartened graduates to rebel against the limitations of mainstream employment, we are encouraged to think critically (and selfishly) in order to escape the trap of exploitation and expandability, characteristic of employment within profit and target obsessed institutions.

Like many other recent graduates, I've trundled down the expensive path of postgraduate study intended to provide me with greater "employability" and expand my academic prospects. Loaded with with an acute awareness of the unfairness of the distribution of wealth, power and educational opportunity, I finished studying with a truck load of debt, anxiety and a serious feeling I had somehow been cheated into going to University and left with a feeling of failure and confusion about how I was going to spend my life after I'd been cast out of the echelons of academia.

After returning home to my parent's house, with my tail somewhat between my legs, I realized I had some serious decisions to make. Four years ago, after returning from a gap year, I started University, cocky in the knowledge I was smart, experienced and more than capable of doing well. Four years later, I was back at home, having just finished an MSc, with less disposable income than when I was 17. Even worse, my initial motivation for going to University and studying something that would eventually allow me to make a tangible difference in the sector of women's rights had dwindled as the pressures of combining academic study, voluntary work, a social life and paid employment escalated towards the end. I was obsessively seeking employment and caving to feelings of despair at the lack of 'entry level' (and paid) jobs relevant to my goals. Having worked myself to mental exhaustion, there was little of the original enthusiasm left.

Of course, I can hardly single myself out as a special case. The sad truth is that most of my friends who recently graduated are in the same miserable state. Straddled between accepting we're in a fortunate position to have an education at all and the fact we're competing for jobs with the non-graduates (often those popular kids who bullied us at school for being geeks), has led to resentment and bitterness. This unfortunate fact was driven further home recently when I bumped into a man who had been in my year at school. What was he upto? "Nah, I never bothered with Uni or any of that... but I'm getting my chartered status as a surveyor soon and living with my girlfriend. Everything's pretty good". What was I up to? I felt almost ashamed to reply that I was staying at my parent's post-Uni and was currently unemployed...

What next? The big question for most of us, as Monbiot explores, is how far we are prepared to accept the status quo. Surely we are not all destined for the ivory towers of the corporate kingdom? Not all of us crave the monotony (and monogamy) of the gruelling nine to five, meeting supercilious targets and pandering to the needs of selfish management. After all of this, we're still struggling furiously against our circumstances. Against the economic climate we're all so exhausted with hearing about in the media, against the hoards of other graduates all clamoring for the same opportunity and against ourselves; against that minuscule part of us that is quietly screaming for a well paid, progressive graduate scheme that fuels our dreams of financial comfort, stability and the ability to once again drink in the pub (without our parents financing it).

For those of us still hanging on selfishly to the last shreds of moral influence we have over career direction, we're at a loss. How can we combine the essential experience required to get that coveted job (in my case, South Asia correspondent for the BBC) while not steering too far away from our ultimate goals. As Monbiot suggests, "start as you mean to go on" and if the market looks impenetrable, "engage by different means". If necessary, take what skills you need from those uncompromising institutions and move on. Don't get too attached, is the final warning. For the disheartened development postgraduate? This means tackling development issues head on, in a thought provoking, critical and journalistic style in order to gain credibility. Let's see how successful this endeavour will be...