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Good morning. If you’re graduating from university, it looks like it’s going to be a better year for getting a job. After plunging 23% after 2007, graduate recruitment has risen a healthy 12% this year. University these days is for the many and not the few. It’s no longer a pass-key into membership of an élite. There are no fewer than 365,000 people graduating this summer. For someone leaving college with no job and major debts, a degree may feel like an expensive luxury. Often when I sit down with a person and ponder together their path in life, we talk about a triangle of their skills, their passions, and what’ll pay the rent. Ideally they find something that meets all three. Sometimes, as with the singer Meat Loaf, they resolve that ‘two out of three ain’t bad.’ But when there’s no outlet for your skills, no channel for your passions, and you’re scratching around just to pay the rent, it can really be a lean season. A lot of people ask, ‘What’s the point of going to university?’ I got my answer to this question from a careers officer. He said, ‘Most young people studying at college today will spend the majority of their working lives using technology that hasn’t been invented yet.’ In other words, university isn’t a training course that equips you with knowledge and skills to pursue a predictable line of endeavour. Instead our working lives are subject to constant change and sometimes full-scale transformation – and the key is to become people who relish and adapt to such new challenges and opportunities. The term ‘university’ comes from the word ‘universe.’ A university is a kaleidoscope of ideas, wisdom, discovery, and wonder. University is about entering a new world, realising the enormity and texture and complexity of the world you’re in. It’s almost like a conversion. St Paul described the experience of conversion like this. He said, ‘When anyone is in Christ – behold, there’s a new creation!’ In other words, becoming a Christian is like entering a whole new reality – or, perhaps, entering true reality for the first time. It doesn’t take all your problems away, but it transcends and transfigures them. It changes the way you think about everything. Going to university should be like that. It’s not a passport to a job or a guarantee of a good income. It’s entering a larger, expanding, multi-dimensional reality, and being given time and friends with whom to find your place in that new universe. Education isn’t about equipping you to become a good employee; it’s about opening your eyes and mind and heart to become a new person.