When I was at university, scribbling away for the student rag, I had dreams of working on a glossy women’s magazine.

Then I discovered that, unless you were a Home Counties girl with family connections in media circles, there was a two-year waiting list for work experience.

So it was that, shortly after graduating, I spent very long days sitting on the floor of a grubby office in an East End Tube station, sorting out dusty old files while people stepped over me.

I’d signed up with a temping agency in London which found me a job filing for the Underground. I had a shiny new BA Honours degree, and letters after my name, but what I didn’t have was office skills. So, to pay the rent, I swallowed my pride and became an office dogsbody.

I later got a job booking appointments for carpet salesmen, which I hated even more than filing, but until my efforts to get into journalism paid off, I needed to be earning. And I’d have done any job rather than going on the dole.

So I don’t have much time for geology graduate Cait Reilly, who is taking legal action against the Government for trying to make her do two weeks of unpaid work experience in Poundland.

Having been on benefits since finishing university last summer, the 22-year-old has been volunteering in a museum, with a view to working in that field. But under a Government scheme aiming to get the long-term unemployed back into work, she was told to do a temporary stint at Poundland, or risk losing her Jobseekers Allowance.

Instead of just getting her head down and stacking shelves for two weeks, she has called in lawyers, claiming that enforced work experience is a breach of her human rights.

Presumably, it’s her human right to live off the state until her dream job lands in her lap.

I’m sure Miss Reilly worked hard for her degree, and her voluntary work is commendable, but she needs to get real. Having a degree doesn’t entitle you to bypass menial employment and walk into a high-flying job, especially these days.

I’ve met journalism graduates who aim to go straight into a specialism, be it fashion, sport or politics, bypassing the small matter of working their way up. As a cub reporter, I spent countless evenings in draughty community centres, covering parish council meetings and road safety committees.

The years spent as a student are the best years of your life. But once they’re out in the real world, graduates can’t expect the road to employment to be strewn with rose petals.