School is coming to a close, and suddenly you’re faced with the question: what are you going to do with your life?

There are meetings with your guidance teacher, lessons on how to apply for university. Endless university visit days to help you decide where you want to go. Everyone else seems to know what the want to do. How lucky, they already have a plan.

I finished school with no goals, no plans, no idea what I was about to do with my life. All I knew was I needed to work with people – a desk job was not the way I wanted to go. I got a job in Starbucks and I worked, but that was never going to feel fulfilling in the way I craved. I went on to get a job in a nursery, and I fell in love with working with children. I knew after just a few months that I wanted to pursue this line of work. I needed to pursue this line of work.

From that moment on I began to gather prospectuses, attend visit days, begin to consider a new future for myself. A quiet hope began to build, a silent determination because I realised I could achieve this, I could become a teacher.

I cannot begin to express the joy I experienced upon receiving my unconditional offer of a place to study at the University of Dundee. Suddenly, my dream was within my grasp. It was no longer a dream, my dream became life.

In some ways I am living in a dream, mundane reality has been left behind. The truth, however, is much different. This is where the real work starts, the hard graft is about to begin. Four years of essays, assessments, and placement. There will be challenges and achievements, failures and successes, highs and lows. This is what I want, this is what I came for, and I’m ready to begin.

The future is still a mystery. I’m ready to be a teacher, yes, but that opens up a world of possibility itself. The opportunity to travel, the opportunity to make my mark in the world, the opportunity to fulfil my purpose in life.