Sarah Klymkiw has advanced dramatically in the last couple of months to become a London flat-dweller with a permanent job loosely related to her fashion ambitions. And yet, but if... Hindsight revisited Would I have worn a shellsuit if I had known better, or bought a 25-year-old mini off ebay without seeing it beforehand? Should I have gone to university, racked up lots of debt only to find that I’m lacking in skills and experience that I could have gained if I had gone straight into employment from school? Hindsight is a magical thing.
If I hadn’t met the people and chosen to do the things I did then I wouldn’t be the person I am today. If I imagine what my life would have been like would I have done things differently? I remember after the summer break and entering into the second year of my degree, I had a ‘catch-up’ with one of my tutors. She asked me what I had done in the ‘holidays’ and so I informed her that I had worked. She asked me why I hadn’t embarked on a relevant internship and so I explained my financial situation. She told me that everyone is in debt, what’s the harm in getting in more for the sake of work experience? Looking back she had a fair comment - I was and I will for many years to come, be in debt, so what was the harm in entering the red a little more for the sake of my CV? Because I couldn’t and so I didn’t, at least not that summer. Right decision?I sit in my little square in Marylebone every lunch break reading my Metro, eating humus and pitta bread, and contemplating my choices. In a place with so many opportunities, have I made the right decision, am I making the most of these opportunities and ultimately am I a better person for my choices? I’ve been lucky and always known what I want to achieve. I’ve always been aware of my goals and tried to retain an air of optimism when I’ve slightly diverted off the path, safe in the knowledge that what I am doing will give me something to lead me back to the straight and narrow and where I want to be. Today, at lunch, I decided that I will embark on an evening course. I’d like to learn French, take a screenprinting course and maybe brush up on my pattern cutting skills. I am fortunate enough to be in the early stage of working at a large company where I am stretching myself, and developing on my existing skills in an environment that could be the gateway to bigger and better things within the field of fashion. Yet the contrast from working full-time and being in full-time education can leave a void that can only be filled when being challenged and continually learning. I cannot count on my job to offer me all the challenges I need to make my life more fulfilling. Missed chancesWould I have been better off pursuing another internship or an evening course before a regular income became imperative? Knowing what I know now I would have attempted to promote my work whilst at university and utilised the IT guy’s knowledge and set up my own website, perhaps even chosen a sandwich course so that I could have undertaken a substantial work placement and not be made to feel guilty for maintaining a part-time job at the expense of my time and ultimately, my degree. But these are choices that were right for me at the time and cannot be considered for too long – after all, they cannot be changed, I can only learn from them. I met up with my close friend who was back from Brussels for the weekend and he told me about one of his friends who dropped out of his History course and went to study Art at the Slade. At the degree show his friend found out he had been offered a full scholarship to study art at the Royal College of Art. Fantastic. Despite living in London, his friend has never had to hold down a job to fund his degree because he subsidised his student loan with cash for doing artwork for CD covers of friends’ band, and now regularly gets commissioned to do large canvases at a couple of grand a pop. It is this resourcefulness that will now mean that he will probably never need to worry about working the 9 to 5 to made ends meet and is on the right path to making a living out of something he loves. What would have happened if he had continued his History degree? Would his degree have suffered if he had to work and couldn’t completely devote himself entirely to art? Does it actually matter? It is stories like these that give you hope, and make you realise that if you work hard enough, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, although it helps to establish who you are right now. But surely it’s where you’re heading that counts. Read Sarah's previous recent job logs
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