full time job at 19? “lied to” by a company? 🫣🫣

put a finger down if you graduated with nitec in the healthcare sector with a GPA 0.5 below the cut off point for poly entry & tried for an ite wsdip but got rejected. then a company offered a sponsorship, but only if you worked for a year with them so you had no choice and said yes & kickstarted your adulthood at 19 years old. then later on they asked if you want to delay school for another year just because you were still learning parts of the job. no? just me then i guess 🤠🤠 yep that’s me.

rewinding back in 2023 feb, i officially graduated from ITE. i scored a 3.0 hence i couldn’t enter a polytechnic. 🥹🥹 my other options were 1. hnitec in courses unrelated to healthcare, or 2. a work study diploma in a “feeder” course from what i studied. i obviously picked the latter because i grown fond of the healthcare industry & i knew i wanted to pursue a career in the industry (jst not too sure which 🙃). we had to be offered a sponsorship by a company, before getting a placement in the course. so once i applied, it took a few weeks until i got an email from the school of the list of companies participating in the programme in which i had to email them my CV & resume. at this point, i was on a holiday & procrastinated on it, which is mistake number 1 because god knows how many other students there were & there were about only 15?? companies …… i then picked out the companies with job scopes that i would prefer, which again, mistake number 2, i should’ve jst applied everywhere & see who would offer me instead 😭😭😭

atp, i only applied for like 5/6 companies because i had ptsd from my internship at a senior care centre, hence did not apply for jobs that are of similar environment 😭 but anyway it was all good because i was getting offered for interviews. but here comes the downhill. i was emailed by a company to be offered a job. the format of the email was a REPLY from my email with the subject being “company sponsorship for ite wsdip in ____”. so excitement got over me and thought i already secured a sponsorship for my studies & accepted the offer. girllll, i was wrong. LOL.

so after back and forth of emails and calls, they suggested that it would be better if i had experienced the industry before thinking of pursuing it as a career, & told me that they would sponsor the wsdip for the following year. since it was already near the school calendar year, and no other companies offered, i said yes. i was so so persistent and only god know how much i cried that day. i was already so bummed that i didn’t get to go poly, now i have to put a hold on my studies……. now i gotta spend my last teen year working ?????? girl i was DEVASTATED. but lo and behold, march 2023, i started my first full time job & gap year bcs it was either that or i become literally an unemployed 19 year old kid. CRAZYYYYY.

the job was so overwhelming at first. i was a fresh grad and i didnt know anytg. had no experiences other than my six month internships. i was the youngest in the team & i felt so alone. i was also an introvert and covid didn’t help bcs i was so used to being away from everyone. so having to face work (while being sad i had to take a gap year) was a mental torture. but im so so grateful to have amazing colleagues who i end up breaking the ice between, & looking back im so grateful i started my whole career with them. 🤎

ANYWAY, near the end of the calendar year, around july, i was given a call by a polytechnic saying that i was going to be offered a placement in their work-study programme (a course that was totally unrelated to what i was doing but also was my dream course). but GIRLLLLL i was SHOCKED. so flashback, in jan before all this happened i was trying my luck applying everywhere i could that i thought i would be interested in. and this wsp course was one of it. the website was sketchy because there wasn’t any applications, it was just a registration of interest. so i didn’t really had any hopes, and kinda forgot i even registered after everything LOL.

so again i applied & interviewed & didn’t tell a single soul about it. atp i was given projects to handle & starting to learn shift-works. one day my boss approached me & out of the blue asked me about the wsdip that they were going to offer me. she said, and i quote, “do you think you want to delay your wsdip to the following year instead, since you just started your shift works & that might be a challenge for you to start school.” GIRL ?????? RED FLAG 🚩🚩(there is literally a-whole-nother story about my shift work drama but i’ll save that for another post T.T) i was alrd taken aback because you’re telling me i have to take ANOTHER gap year when im already dreading this one ……… mind you there’s a 2 years bond i have to serve after my 2.5-ish years of school 😀😀😀 amidst all this, i eventually got offered a full time job at another company for the poly wsp 🤠🤠. told a colleague of my whom i was close with and she told me i should jst pursue the diploma by poly instead of waiting for them to give me the sponsorship.

& since my said company is persistent of giving me the sponsorship, i sent in my resignation letter & accepted the full time job & started my journey in pharmaceutical science ❤️ a CHILDHOOD DREAMMM.

so i guess it isn’t really a whole gap year since it was only like …. 10 months??? but ain’t no way i’m spending another 5 year in the company when i can progress in a diploma now, might i add, WITHOUT a bond 🤑🤑 so now i am a year 2 pharm sci student & im absolutely loving school & have the nicest colleagues ever (and a much much better pay grade shhh 🫣) <333

it was such a crazy year & it was so crazy how i did everytg i did all before i turned 20. so this is a reminder of how unpredictable life can be, and that if anything is meant for you, it will always reach you at the best time you can receive. i’ll never be the same person if i didn’t experience my first job, and every atom in me would want to go back to experience it just to be around the people i was with. but for my sanity, i would also respectfully never ever come back. 🪩🤍