1
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thank you

2
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I've never really expected

3
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to find myself giving advice to people graduating

4
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from an establishment of higher education.

5
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I've never graduated from any such establishment.

6
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I've not even started at one. I escaped from school as soon

7
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as I could, when the prospect of four more years of enforced

8
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learning before I'd become the writer I wanted to be

9
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seems stifling. I got out into the world, I wrote

10
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till I became a better writer the more I wrote, and I wrote some more,

11
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and nobody ever seemed to mind that I was making it all up as I went along,

12
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they just read what I wrote and they me paid for it, or they didn't,

13
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and often they commissioned me to write something else for them.

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Which has left me with a healthy respect and fondness

15
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for higher education that those of my friends and family,

16
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who attended Universities, were cured of long ago.

17
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Looking back, I've had a remarkable ride.

18
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I'm not sure I can call it a career, because a career implies

19
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that I had some kind of career plan,

20
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and I never did. The nearest thing I had was a list I made when I was 15