HOW CAN YOU GET AHEAD OVER THE SUMMER?

So you’ve finished off your exams, have almost finished college and you’re looking forward to spending as much time as possible with your friends this summer, right?

Wrong… Have you considered how you might be able to get ahead for university and your career this summer?

Although it doesn’t sound very appealing, the summer holidays are the perfect time to start thinking about your university application or career ideas more seriously. Universities are looking for a well-rounded person, who shows more than just academic achievements. You’ve got 47 lines to talk about yourself on your personal statement – what are you going to say?

This summer is also a perfect time to take the first steps towards your career. Part time work or volunteering shows your commitment to an area of work you’re interested in, and means you gain valuable skills employers are looking for. Thinking of teaching? You could volunteer for a kids club, Brownies, Cubs, youth club. Are you interested in working in healthcare? You could volunteer for St John’s Ambulance, in a care home, with various charities. Interested in working with animals? You could approach local animal shelters and charities. For more information about volunteering, see the related post (originally named ‘Volunteering’).

The opportunities are endless, but it’s up to you to find them, make the most of them and use them to your advantage by learning new skills.

VOLUNTEERING

Work experience / volunteering / relevant experience – what’s it all about? The truth is, work experience is really important. Yes, we know you’ve been told that a hundred times, but hopefully after reading this you will understand why.

You might be dreaming about sitting in the sun for the summer after you’ve worked hard and deserve it, but this is really important too.

So, why is it so important?

1. It gives you an idea of ‘the world of work’. This sounds like what a school teacher would tell you, but it’s true. It doesn’t have to be paid – voluntary experience is excellent to put on your CV and your personal statement. Sometimes, your idea about what a banker does all day can be VERY different from the truth. The same applies for any job – if you gain some work experience you find out what it’s ACTUALLY like.
2. It shows you are serious about the work you are interested in and/or applying for, and is sometimes a requirement in getting a place on the university course you want.
3. If you’ve done charity work, fundraising, volunteered in a school or nursing home etc, it shows your commitment and desire to help others – you’ve taken time out of your day to offer something, which is an achievement.
4. Unfortunately, having a university degree isn’t enough any more – employers are looking for employees with work experience, ideally relevant to what they’re applying for.

I know after reading the last point you might be thinking: “well that’s great, but how do I get relevant work experience if everywhere wants me to have some experience in the first place?”

Sometimes, it’s not easy. In fact, sometimes, it can be difficult. However, that doesn’t mean you’re destined for the unemployment shelf or doing a job you hate for the rest of your life, it just means you need to up your game and take advantage of as many opportunities as you can. Volunteering is a great way to this.

A few ideas:

• http://www.do-it.org – a great website where you can view all of the volunteering opportunities in your area.

• http://www.volunteering.org.uk

• Local charities, youth groups, local political parties, campaigners etc may all appreciate your web design skills, social media knowledge, or an extra pair of hands at events/with projects.

• Work shadowing – do you know anyone doing the job you are interested in? If so, could you shadow them for a day to see what it’s like?

If you need any more ideas about how you can get involved or where to find opportunities, contact us.

Enjoy your summer.

The dreaded personal statement…

After a little time off in the sunshine, we’ve got another article written by our guest blogger, Katie. Katie has applied to university this year, so she knows what you’re going through if you’re applying this year too. Here’s Katie’s hints and tips on what to write in your personal statement.

 

Personal statements: just sit down and write about yourself for a while. At first it seems easy, but only when you start to write your first draft do you realise how difficult it’s actually going to be. You have 4000 characters (including spaces) to make a good first impression and suddenly you realise how difficult it is to write with a tight character limit!

The best way to start is, as usual, with a mind map. Put your name in the middle and fill the page with anything and everything that could be relevant. Extra-curricular activities from secondary school days, musical achievements, sport (this will show that you can work in a team). You could also include things like Saturday jobs and other commitments like St John’s ambulance and guides/scouts, especially if you earned any awards through these like the Baden Powell award. If you never did any of those kind of things or can’t think of anything, you need to dig deeper. It’s likely that you did a first aid certificate at school, so that can go in. Did you do a sports leadership award in year 10? Use that. Cycling proficiency in year 6… Perhaps not.

If you were involved in any summer schools or residential gifted & talented courses like Villiers’ Park, there’s a separate bit on the application page where you can enter this information. However, it might be worth mentioning it in your statement too, just to make sure nobody misses it (universities value this kind of thing very much).

When you’ve got a rough idea of what you’re going to include, you need to move onto showing your passion for the subject. If, for example, you’re off to study English Language, you should talk about specific areas of the subject that you’re interested in, like Language Acquisition or History of Language. This shows that you’ve done your research and you’re already quite well-versed in the subject. You could talk about the books you’ve read, showing that you’ve taken it upon yourself to read around the subject before even starting the course.

Now that you’ve got these two main areas covered, you should write your first draft. You’ll probably find that you’ve got far too much written by the end of it, so you’ll need to edit it down a LOT before it goes off to the universities. A useful thing to do is make copies of your statement to give to people (teachers, head of year, friends, milkman, cat etc.) and ask them to pencil in any changes they would make. You might find that they remember something you’ve missed out, or spot a spelling mistake.

A really strong personal statement can get you a long way in the application process, even if your predicted grades don’t totally match up to the entry requirements of the universities you’re applying to. My predicted grades certainly weren’t what was needed, so I made sure my statement was the best it could be, and it paid off in the end as I quickly got offers from all 5 of my choices!

Good luck with your statements!