So, you’re graduating from Leeds

All good things come to an end, and your time at Leeds has certainly been a good thing.

But fear not: as your time in the city of dreams reaches its twilight, think of it as a new chapter in the book of your life.

You can take the grad out of Leeds, but you can’t take Leeds out of the grad – so with that in mind, here’s what’s going to happen to you once you leave Hyde Park’s hallowed halls.

Where you’ll live

Hyde Park is wonderful: the streets are lined with NOS canisters and paved with post-house party chunder puddles, and for every decrepit terraced house there’s an inviting Hyde Park Pub or a Zulfi’s to mop up all your post-night out blues.

So where in London could possibly compare? Not the real Hyde Park, that’s for sure – it’s way too posh, and it doesn’t have a single Sainsbury’s Local.

You’ve spent so long lounging on dust-gathering Brudenell front-patios that Clapham will be much more up your street. It’s full of rugby boys with signet rings, there are three Saino’s to choose from and Infernos is basically the Fruity of the south. You’ll feel right at home.

If London isn’t your cup of tea, then you’re probably going to end up somewhere edgy like Brighton. Everyone’s moving there, and you won’t be able to resist the “far end of Headingley” connotations of telling people you live in the arse-end of nowhere.

Or maybe you’ll head further afield: after all, one gap yah is never enough, and you’ve been planning your trip back to Ko Pha Ngan ever since you first lived with Hattie in Charles Morris.

One thing’s for sure – unless you’re on the LUU Exec or you get a job at Best Vintage, you’re not going to stay in Leeds.

Where you’ll work

Realistically you’re going to go into PR. It’s the only career in which you’ll find likeminded people, if by likeminded you mean equally attractive and also hailing from the home counties.

Your days will be spent sending out infectiously bubbly emails to potential clients, the skills to do which you learnt from your days on the RAG committee, your brief promo stint for No Curfew in first year and the countless times you talked your way into house parties on Ash Grove.

If not PR, you’ll end up in something vaguely hard to define like Recruitment or Copywriting, where you’ll fester until you earn enough money to book a one-way ticket to Phuket and fulfil your dream of whittling surfboards on a beach.

Who you’ll go out with

Eventually you’ll get over dip-dyed hair, harem pants and bushy beards. After all, the rugby body/house-head types down south have stopped selling High Rise tickets for a bit of extra cash, instead having sold their soul to the suits for a place on the Lloyds grad scheme.

If you’ve had even a passing glance at Bumble in London, most of the tumbling “posh hair” girls who roam the halls of Devonshire head straight down south anyway – albeit minus the nose rings they used to rock in their Beaver Works glory days.

You’ll inevitably meet one of them at the Hackney-based Gin & Juice summer party, and reminisce about how the ones up north were so much better.

Before you know it you’ll have reverted to type, going out with the sort of Barbour-sporting toff you swore you were done with after you broke up with Miles/Millie when they pulled someone else at Mission during Freshers’.

What you’ll spend money on

Real life is a lot crueller outside of Leeds: that’s something that you’ll find out pretty quickly.

You know the £90 a week you were spending on your house, bills included? Try £800 a month for a Hoxton hovel – bills definitely not included.

That Essentials meal deal you used to get when you were dossing about in the Hidden Cafe? The same costs £7+ in Pret.

And the Library’s famous £1 pints? You’ll be lucky to get one for less than a fiver in  Soho.

What you’ll do for fun

Gone are the days of 2-4-1s at Mook and then onto Fruity. Life in the big city is much more Call Lane, in terms of both expense and the quantity of dickheads around.

You’ll have some preparation early though: all those nights in  East Village aren’t far off East London, in the fact that every bar is overpriced and crowded, with tattered armchairs and beer that they refuse to serve in pints.

Forget the grotty basements of Hessle Mount house parties, you’ll be a classier sort now: as in, you’ll swap warm Red Stripe for espresso martinis and bombs of MD for keys of coke. After all, ket just doesn’t seem like a good idea when you actually have to look presentable on Monday mornings.

The bigger nights out will be spent in clubs which look like grown-up versions of the Tiger Tiger disco room, where drinks are four times as expensive and you can’t use your phone on the dancefloor. Slowly but surely, you’ll become the sort of person who relishes “after-work drinks” over VKs in sweaty superclubs, and you’ll both love and hate yourself for it.

You’ll spend your entire time in London trying to get a Shoreditch House membership, and you’ll fail. At least there are more roof terraces to fall back on here than just the fucking Belgrave.

What you’ll cry about first

It’ll be the missing home that gets you.

Sure, your parents in Guildford might only be an hour away, but the six-month interrim period you spent living at home fooled you into a false sense of security before you finally moved into your two-bed in Peckham. There’s no four-week holidays at home any more – you’re in it for the long haul.

And of course, you’ll miss your spiritual home. Every so often you’ll head back to Leeds – someone will organise a birthday Otley Run that first October, and you’ll begrudgingly book a train even though everyone else was meant to be going out in Brixton that night.

Despite your apprehension, as you sit in Skyrack staring into a pint of Leeds Pale with your old housemates on either side, even the staunchest graduate will get a little misty-eyed and ask themselves the age-old question: can’t I just do one more year?