“What? In his thirties? With this economic outlook? Quitting a career and going into education? He’s a fool.”

It’s something I’m sure people have thought when I’ve told them my intentions. In fact, I’ve had people say similar directly to me.

Often, it’s hard for me to articulate a response clearly on the spot.

Fortunately, with a blog post, I have a little more time to explain things. I’m not really sure it’ll make much difference. Here goes anyway!

What’s the Reason for Uni?

My current situation:

• I’m not happy where I am
• I want a creative career, but not entirely sure what
• I have a talent and passion for art
• I don’t have experience in it

Therefore right now, I don’t feel confident to go for a creative role, and frankly I don’t have the experience or knowledge of exactly what floats my boat.

Uni should give:

• Opportunity to explore many creative roles
• Plenty of experience (it’s a vocational course with work for real-life clients)
• Inspiration (like-minded people, freedom to explore ideas, interesting part of the world)
• Vast improvement on my skills
• A big boost to my confidence

By the end of Uni, I should be in a much better place in terms of skills, experience, confidence and (one hopes) employability!

Why Now?

There’s no time like the present. It’s a cliché, but it’s true.

Of course, you could argue that it’s too late in life to be doing something like this. That by now I should be:

• Married
• Soon to be a parent
• Working my way up the career ladder

Well, that’s all lovely. But I’m not. Oh and it’s not too late, dufus.

You don’t just suddenly decide to settle down. You need to be ready, and guess what? I’m not. I never have been. Why? Because I want to be happy in my work first, doing something creative and ace.

Until then, “settling down” is a pseudonym for “just settling”.

Previously I’ve let The Fear Of Risk™ stop me from taking a leap of faith towards what I really want. You could argue I wasted much of my 20s due to this *.

Well, enough is enough. Yes, I’m not a yoof anymore, but I’m also never going to be as young as I am right now (which both rad and skill).

• Have I got ties? Nope.
• Can I afford to do this? Yep.
• When the hell will I get a better chance than now? Good point. You knows it.

But Quitting Your Job in this Economy?

Yes, I’m afraid so. To be honest, my reasoning here is similar to that above.

I can’t predict the future, but I can make a positive change to my life.

Sure, it’s risky, but then I consider the following things:

• You’ve already worked out this is the best change you can make right now.
• The worst case scenario is: you try to get back into IT, with 9 years’ experience under your belt, various references and both an IT degree and digital creative FdA to accompany them.
• When you’re 50, even if it all goes to pot, you’ll be happy that you at least tried.
• If it all goes well, who knows what you’ll be doing in your mid 30s!

My conclusion is always this: bring on the return to education at 31. :-)

Pat

* Aside from the trip to Nz/Oz. That… that was frickin’ amazing.

P.S. Special kudos to my mate Jimbo who rightly suggested the best response to anyone questioning my motives is this: “I’m doing it because it’ll make me happy. So f**k off.” :-)