Don’t Be Afraid To Take A Different Path | by Kadijatu Conteh

"Failure is a part of the process. You just learn to pick yourself back up." ― Michelle Obama

Navigating Family Expectations

Coming from a black African household where education is such an important value (rightfully so) going to university was a given. So when I reached that point in my life where I had to choose a path for my future I struggled a lot. I felt lost about the future and wanted to take a gap year to figure things out - something that my parents would never have approved of and even my head of sixth form advised me to reconsider. On one hand, I wanted to please my parents by going down the traditional path (picking a hard science and getting a degree and getting a good job etc.) whereas on the other hand, I felt like that wasn’t the path I wanted. Unfortunately, the fear of disappointing my family and the pressure of not wanting to fall behind my peers led me to go down a path I would later come to regret.

I gave in to the pressure and did what everybody else was doing and went to university to pursue a Biomedical science degree. University is seen as the safe option, the stable option. It gives you a false sense of security that your life will be all sorted if you just spend x amount of years studying but of course that is not always the case. It’s harder than ever to land a job and just having a degree is simply not enough. Not to mention the hefty sum you have to pay to study.

The Tipping Point

Within the first semester of my Biomedical Science degree, I was already regretting my choice. But I tried to ignore my gut and went with it. I wasn’t very happy with my degree, quite miserable actually but I continued to suppress my feelings for as long as I could.  It wasn’t so much the degree itself that I struggled with but rather everything else about university. Having to sit through 3 hours of lectures at a time with 80+ slides just didn’t work for me.  I could feel the pressure building up inside me like a buoyant balloon that’s been pushed inside water just waiting to spring back up and eventually, it did. It was early March of 2020, just before the pandemic hit, and it couldn’t have been at a worse time. I wanted to keep going because I’d already put up with it for a year and a half. I felt like if I stopped there, I would have wasted all that time and money I invested into university without getting anything out of it. But if I had continued, it would have cost me far more than the time and money I had “wasted”. I would say I made the choice to leave but really, my body forced me to, in the form of a complete mental breakdown.

Dealing With The Aftermath

Since education was such an integral part of my family, leaving formal education left me in a bad state mentally. The months following my leaving university were probably the longest and darkest times in my life. I was severely depressed and hopeless about life (and at times suicidal). I felt like a failure and a disappointment to not only my family but also to friends and teachers who had high expectations of me. I felt like I’d let everyone. My sense of self-worth and personal identity was so wrapped up in what grades I got that when I didn’t have that anymore, I felt like I had also lost my self-worth.

Picking Up The Pieces and Starting Over

However, 3 years later, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on and process what happened. I’ve been able to pick myself back up from my depression and start a new chapter in my life. I’ve also had time to reflect on the idea of success and what that looks like for me. I’ve had to learn to separate my worth from external achievement. I volunteered, worked a few jobs, and tried to bring a sense of normalcy to my life again. I started looking into software engineering long before I ever had the courage to apply for any apprenticeships. The fear of potentially failing again almost stopped me from giving it a chance but I am so glad I did because now I’m here working towards becoming a software engineer and it’s been such an amazing experience. I’ve learned so much in such a short period and I know it won’t be an easy journey but it’ll be worth the hard work. I have met many people like myself on this programme who chose a nonlinear path, which has been very reassuring. 

Moving Forward With A New Outlook on Life

Looking back now, I put way more pressure on myself than I needed to. I thought that I would end up doing the course I’d chosen to study for the rest of my life but that’s obviously not the case because I know now that what you study kind of doesn’t matter (unless you’re doing a traditional field like medicine or law). What matters is showing up for 3 years. That’s something I wish someone had told me. Maybe it would’ve kept me going for another year and a half. But even though it wasn’t great at the time, I’m now glad things played out the way they did because I’m happy with where I am right now and very positive about the future.

Kadijatu is a Software Engineering apprentice at Multiverse based in Bristol, UK, and is writing for The Apprentice Lens. Here's more about her:

Hi, I'm Kadija. I'm a Software Engineer Apprentice. I’m inspired to write for the Apprentice Lens by my desire to connect with other apprentices and fellow professionals through my writing. I hope to develop my writing skills, overcome my fear of sharing my writing with others, and improve my confidence.