Don’t go back for Mou-r

With Jose Mourinho’s return to Chelsea fresh in the mind of many with a sporting eye, students should be considering what many journalists asked this week: Should you ever make a return to something you have done before?

Mourinho’s move to the club he left almost six years ago might make a little more sense than a lot of similar decisions us students make – although admittedly any actions we take are probably unlikely to provide a ten-million-pounds-per-annum salary.

The summer break sees a lot of people ‘returning’ – from first-years enjoying their first lengthy holiday at uni, to finalists ending up back at home, jobless, boasting only a Desmond and a few lines on their CV from three years in Higher Education.

It might seem like the easier path to tread, but is it one we should be following? Ending up back at your crappy little job in the village bakery, sleeping in the squalor of the bedroom that has long become an extension of your mother’s wardrobe – it’s not exactly ideal.

Sure, not everyone ends up on the grad scheme of their dreams at KPMG, but there has to be another option? From the standard student dosser job of teaching English out in the Far East to hours spent behind a bar to just about fund a shared South London flat – change is where it’s at and it’s good to embrace it. Perhaps a thought that it’s best to keep in mind before you pay up for that expensive masters course – staying in the same house that you spent your third year in, or before you end up filling shifts at that same old summer job.

After all, having spent month-on-month in monotonous York, walking past the same people on the same hungover route to campus each day – isn’t it about time we sought to make a change from the typical York route? I mean, we are so obsessed with this city that in the past it has been used as an excuse for our comparatively poor graduate employability statistics. Whether you are a first year, second year, finalist or postgrad, try not to get sucked into the same old cycle that struggles to provide you or anyone else with any benefits.

Just like it’s inevitable that Jose and Roman will fall out, going back to what you did before is always going to end in tears – only for us students to have to, eventually, more on. Why not make the move earlier? Make the most of the summer months, or the rest of your life, whichever length of time it is that you are spending away from this fine concrete campus.

So, move on – try not to find yourself trapped back in that old failed relationship stacking shelves back at your local branch of Co-op, or shacked up with the parents. Get out – mix it up a bit and make the change. It’s the least you can do after months of the same old monotonous routine.

Mr Mourinho has his own way of doing things – now York students should be encouraging themselves to find theirs.