0130hrs I got up this morning. I couldn’t sleep. Too much was weighing on my mind. The results of the EU Referendum will impact my life, perhaps more than most. I slipped downstairs and put on the BBC news that is running all night.
In the early hours the Remain vote started to pull ahead. For a while there those presenting the show seemed upbeat and positive, but then it started to go downhill. Leave began to take key areas. The map turned blue.
I’ve just graduated with almost fifty thousand pounds worth of debt from university. This doesn’t scare me – not at all. The last three years of my life has been more than worth than that – I’d have paid double.
The EU has been one of the things that has helped make the institution that I studied at so good. Only recently they celebrated being placed 20th in the rankings for History of Art. Not bad for an old polytechnic. It’s EU investment that got us here. It’s EU students that have diversified the student body, and bought multiculturalism to what we do.
If we leave the EU many institutions have stated that our education system will suffer. Less money, less foreign students, less talent. Many will downsize their operations. Many will just simply get worse.
My degree teeters on the edge. I took a gamble and went to an up and coming university. My universities reputation is likely to go down in the global rankings now. My degree is not worth as much in the global market now as it was two hours ago.
My career was based on the idea that I wanted to be a lecturer. But there will be less money in the future. More staff fighting over fewer jobs. Less money for research. Less research. A downward spiral.
Our currency has this morning hit levels that have not been since since before I was born. I am 31 years old.
We are fucked. My career is fucked.
What could I have done better? What could I have said to convince people to vote Remain? How could I have used my writing more effectively? I don’t know.
