After pulling all-nighters and medicating your insanity with Red Bull, discover your invincible self as a graduate.
Like the cool, cold hint of autumn leaves crunching beneath your feet during your commute to class, you know it’s there. Lurking, grinning at you from a distance. Graduation.
All Halloween vibes aside, student life is just about to say a bittersweet goodbye to those graduating in just a few short months.
For graduates this could mean the fear of the unknown. Of anticipation and suspense. All are mutual feelings that students may have before finally tossing that graduation cap into the air.
According to the Department for Education report on September 27, 2018, the HEIPR (Higher Education Initial Participation Rate) for 2016/17 is 49.8%, an increase of 0.7 percentage points from last year. This shows that a steady rise in the number of students have been participating in higher education ever since 2006/07.
Nyasha Zimba, who studied chemistry at London Metropolitan University, took the leap and dove into the arts arena. “Literally I dove head first into it,” says Zimba. Her face is beaming as she nods and laughs. She’s wearing a bright purple top overlaid with a delicate necklace, smart jacket and winged eyeliner.
“I was like…I had to get back into it. At the start of university, I had given up on dance. I thought, it’s probably not going to happen. But I learned that you can’t restrict yourself. You do what you care about and make those things happen.”
So how does the arts and chemistry relate? “They relate to me,” says Zimba. “My characteristic includes problem solving. When I see a problem I want to solve it. Chemistry taught me a lot about myself and with my brain I’m quite mathematical, which plays into dance amazingly. As a scientist, science is all about understanding people and how they feel in a certain way. Each of us have gifts and talents, nobody taught us to do them, we just do them.”
For Zimba, it all comes down to this problem solving as a dance leader. She lead the London Metropolitan University to the University Dance Championships, placing second out of seven in intermediate hip hop. But her vision beyond graduation has been to launch her own creative arts company at the end of this year.
“I’m the type of person who doesn’t like to hold back. I want to create an environment where people can do what they want with other like-minded creatives, collaborating together as a force. Even if it’s just a really powerful video or element of acting, we can all do it together, as a team.”
And her advice for future grads? “You need to be confident that whatever it is you want, just go ahead and do it. Honestly, whatever you want to make happen, you can make it happen,” says Zimba.
Ashley Davis is a budding entrepreneur with a fancy for felines. A graduate in Communications at Marist College, New York, she currently lives in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region of southeastern France. And her vision? To open a cat cafe.
“Not just any regular cafe. I’d like to open a cat bookshop,” says Davis. “There’s only one thing better than curling up with a good book. And that’s curling up with a cat. I’d like a few cats wandering around to make the experience more dynamic and welcoming. The goal is to team up with a local shelter to allow these cats to be available for adoption. Hopefully this will provide a source for these animals to find their forever-home.”
Davis has a plan of allowing the general public to caress these creatures while hanging out and socialising. With over 12 countries under her traveling belt and counting, Davis chose to study abroad with Semester At Sea during her studies.
“Studying abroad isn’t about the studying. It’s about taking advantage of the experiences that traveling gives to you. That’s when you really learn.”
And to the students wondering if they too should study abroad, she gives this advice: “I’d say just go for it. Everything I ever needed to learn in university, I learned during my semester abroad. It helped me discover my personality, identify my personal values and develop invaluable skills that I can apply to my daily life and career.”
An avid photographer, Davis chose not to study photography but to instead immerse herself in it during her travels. “To me, it’s more simply a means of expressing how you see the world. I did take a few photography classes in high school and university but nothing serious. As far as Instagram goes, I treat it as a photo journal, where I document places I’ve seen so I can look back at this digital collection of my life.”
And, for a trendy travel tip, she gets her kicks out of well-worn boots during the chilly season.
“I’ll wait all summer to break them out and when autumn finally rolls around, I do this little jig, because in cooler weather I can strut around in my boots. I don’t know what it is, but a perfect pair of tall boots has this magic to boost my confidence. It’s like I can take on the world.”
As Davis says, this is what fashion is all about: “Finding the perfect way to express yourself in a way that makes you invincible.”
❦
This post has been published by _shiftLondon.org, a University of the Arts London student news website which you can also view HERE
Home 
