TEN YEARS LATER: WHAT UNIVERSITY NEVER TAUGHT ME
No one has ever been an elder before, but everyone has been a child before.
I found my 6-months-post-grad blog post last month and sat there smiling at it. The proverb above is the same proverb I shared in that post. I was 22, 6-months out of the University of Southampton, with no real plan beyond graduate, get a good job and climb the ladder. Looking back now, I'm genuinely grateful I didn't know. A decade later, I can tell you with total confidence: it has not gone the way I mapped it out. It has been better in places I didn't expect and harder in places I thought I had prepared for. It has taken me through various industries from manufacturing to financial services, from technology and entertainment to life sciences and biotech, through funding rounds and legal transformation projects and governance work that has taken me across the UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa. It has also taken me through slow seasons that felt endless, and through a fair amount of rejection I don't often talk about.
If I had to boil ten years down into one lesson, it is this: your career is only one part of you. Who you are becoming matters much more than the title on your LinkedIn or CV.
April 2016: Mentoring and empowering young people.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT ISN'T A NICE-TO-HAVE
University taught me how to think. My jobs taught me how to deliver. But it is life, honestly, that has taught me who I am - and that education never stops, whether or not anyone is testing you on it. Some of my best investments this decade weren't just on qualifications, though I've picked up a few more of those too since graduation. They were things like learning to communicate under pressure, building emotional resilience, sitting through difficult conversations instead of avoiding them, and understanding people well enough to actually work with them, not just alongside them.
→ Keep learning even when nobody is asking you to. The moment you stop learning is the moment you stop growing - that much I did get right at twenty-two.
→ Invest in yourself the way you would invest in anyone you believed in. You are, quite genuinely, the most valuable asset you will ever build. Invest in yourself, into every aspect of your life.
2019: Professional corporate event/conference attendee! DLA Piper Africa 2018/19 & BYP Leadership Conference 2019
NOBODY IS COMING TO FIND YOU
This one took me a while to accept. I used to believe good work would simply be noticed - that if I did the job well, opportunity would find its way to me eventually. It doesn’t really work like that, or at least it hasn't for me. Almost every meaningful opportunity in my career traces back to a conversation I chose to have. Messages I sent to people who didn't know me - cold calls on LinkedIn included! Follow-ups I made when it felt awkward to. Events I walked into alone, not knowing a soul. Moving countries and starting over. Introductions I had to ask for, out loud, because nobody was going to guess I wanted them.
→ Networking is not about collecting contacts. It is about building intentional and genuine relationships long before you need anything from them. I still keep in touch with people I worked with years ago, and honestly, some of those relationships have carried me further than any CV line ever did.
THE LADDER WAS NEVER THE ONLY SHAPE
For a long time I believed success meant one ladder, climbed carefully, in order. Today, my career looks far more like a portfolio than a ladder - and ten years ago I didn't even know that was a legitimate way to work. Alongside my 9-5 roles, I began consulting - first taking on clients ranging from early-stage startups to established corporations, then building that into Myrtle Advisory Group, which now advises businesses, founders and investors on governance, contract management, fundraising and market entry across Europe, Africa and beyond. I run The Elevator Sessions, coaching early- and mid-stage professionals through exactly the kind of uncertainty I am describing here. I still take on strategic advisory work that stretches me into new industries and new problems.
None of that fits neatly into one job title. I have stopped needing it to.
→ The future belongs to people who can hold expertise, relationships and adaptability at the same time - not to people waiting for the next rung.
RESILIENCE IS SOMETHING YOU BUILD, NOT SOMETHING YOU'RE BORN WITH
There have been seasons where I genuinely questioned whether I was behind. Wondering, quietly, whether I had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Comparison is easy to fall into and hard to climb back out of. What has helped me most is remembering that life moves in seasons, not straight lines. Some seasons you're building. Some you're harvesting. Some you are, quite simply, surviving - and that is allowed too. Whatever season you are in, toil your season with diligence and have faith that God will indeed keep you and see you through into your next.
→ Resilience isn't about pretending everything is fine. It is deciding to keep moving even when it isn't.
SUCCESS LOOKS DIFFERENT NOW
At 22, success looked like having the right job title. 10 years later, it looks like freedom - the freedom to choose the work I take on, to build something of my own, to work across Africa and the Diaspora, and to sit in rooms I once only hoped to be invited into.
I am still incredibly ambitious, if anything even more than I was at 22! I have just stopped measuring success solely by promotions and pay rises, and started measuring it by the full life I am building alongside my businesses.
TO ANYONE GRADUATING THIS YEAR
You do not need your whole career mapped out. You do not need to get every decision right, and you really don't need to compare your Chapter 1 to someone else's Chapter 10 - I promise you, they were once exactly where you are. Be curious. Stay teachable. Invest in yourself before anyone tells you to. Build the relationships before you need them. Say yes to the things that stretch you, even when they are uncomfortable.
10 years ago I thought graduation was the finish line. Looking back, it was only the introduction - and I have a pretty strong feeling the best chapters are still ahead!
I'm Jennifer, founder of Myrtle Advisory Group, a boutique advisory firm helping businesses, founders and investors navigate contracts, governance and market entry across Africa and international markets. I also run The Elevator Sessions, coaching early- and mid-stage professionals through exactly the kind of stretch this post is about. If any of this resonated, I would love to hear from you - reach out, I always enjoy the conversation.