FIVE DREAM JOBS

As a break from revision, why not dream up your perfect job – it may even be below. Have you ever thought about these or knew you could get paid to do them?

Chocolate Tester

Fancy tasting chocolate all day? Cat Channon does just that at Cadburys – she is one of 50 official chocolate testers at the company. She works in research and development, using her Chemistry degree to make sure new chocolate creations are not impaired by their taste or texture and conform to the company’s requirements. It’s not all scientific though – at least 10-20% of her time is spent eating chocolate.

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Cryptology

Are you interested in studying Maths or Computer Science and like solving puzzles? If so, Cryptology might be for you. A Cryptanalyst deciphers codes, puzzles or cryptograms (they turn encrypted data into readable text). Cryptologists create encrypted data, in order to protect private information.

Cryptology is used widely in:

• mobile phones (protecting calls and texts)
• banking (chip and PIN cards)
• internet (protecting transaction details)
• corporate computer security
• home computing
• satellite TV (e.g. Sky)

So employers range from the Ministry of Defence, GCHQ, telecommunication companies or the Serious Organised Crime Agency, and large companies (such as Deloitte or KPMG) also employ people in this field.

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Lego Master Builder

If you used to (or still do) love playing with Lego, how about getting paid to do it? Over 30 full time Lego builders plan and build a range of models in Lego’s only building company, Bright Bricks. Past models have included:  miniature skyscrapers, family portraits, a sleigh and eight reindeers (complete with Rudolph’s glowing nose) and a working scale model of a Rolls Royce engine. They’re currently working on a Titanic model and have a stock of up to 12 million Lego bricks in their warehouse! Someone is even employed to re-sort any Lego pieces that fall on the floor.

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Rollercoaster Designer

If you love roller coasters (or Roller Coaster Tycoon), John Wardley’s job could be for you. He designed many of the roller coasters in UK theme parks, including ‘The Smiler’ at Alton Towers, ‘The Swarm’ at Thorpe Park and various others at theme parks across the world. John’s first roller coaster project was turning Chessington Zoo into a theme park (now Chessington World of Adventures), and his career ‘took off’ from there.

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There are also the jobs that are mind numbingly boring, like watching paint dry. Oh, wait, that’s a job too…

Watching paint dry (Research Scientist)

A Research Scientist at Dulux studies paint drying under a microscope to check the quality of the paint, how quickly it dries and its durability. Who knew this was actually a job?!

Clearing and Adjustment – what you need to know for Thursday

What is Clearing?

Clearing is the UCAS procedure students enter if they decide not to take either of their university offers (and have agreed this with the universities where they are holding offers), they don’t meet the conditions of their chosen course(s), or they have applied to university late.

Clearing is a procedure where all university courses with available places advertise these vacancies to students without offers.

What is Adjustment?

Less common than Clearing, you may enter Adjustment if you have done better than predicted, and wish to go to a different university from those you accepted a firm and insurance offer from. Adjustment students have the option to go to a university with higher entry requirements, but higher entry requirements don’t necessarily mean it’s a better course. Everyone is different-your perfect course might be at the university you originally applied for, so think carefully before giving up your place at the university you’ve wanted to go to for the past few months.

As there are a lot more students who enter Clearing than Adjustment, we’ll focus on Clearing here.

A FEW POINTS TO REMEMBER

You will get LOTS of advice this week from lots of people (family, family friends, the neighbour’s cat etc.), so let’s keep this short.

1. If you are going into Clearing (it will tell you on UCAS Track if you’re eligible), have a look on the UCAS website or in the Telegraph newspaper on Thursday for the list of courses that have places and useful telephone numbers.

2. When you’ve found a course you like, call the university. Phone lines may be busy but keep trying. Make sure you have all your information to hand (personal details, results, UCAS number, phone number they can reach you on) and a pen and paper, to make it as easy as possible.

3. It’s difficult, but try to visit the university BEFORE making an application. You’re going to be there for 3 (or more) years – go and have a look at the town/city, accommodation, facilities, meet the tutors. Many tutors will invite you to the university before you apply anyway, so take them up on this offer.

4. Remember you only get one choice for clearing, and once you’ve made a decision and entered onto UCAS Track, it’s final. Make sure you are 100% happy with the course and university before entering it. You can call as many universities as you like and receive verbal offers, but they may have a time constraint on them (e.g. 24-48 hours).

 Also remember you can choose a completely different course to the one you originally applied for. For example, if you applied for Business Studies, but you have the entry requirements for Fine Art in Clearing, you can apply to that instead.

5. Don’t make any rushed decisions in a panic. You can’t add any choices onto your UCAS application until around 5pm on results day for this reason.

Although it’s a stressful time, remember why you made the decisions you did in the first place – if you decided you didn’t want to move too far from home, don’t apply to a university that is 5 hours away. If you applied for Geography and you’re now considering Film Studies – what has changed? Why did you pick Geography in the first place? If you applied for a course in a smaller town because you prefer quieter locations, don’t choose a London university. And visit the university to make sure you like it, can see yourself living there (if you are moving away) and know exactly what to expect when you arrive in September. You might like surprises, but University doesn’t want to be one of them.

And finally, Considering Uni? is here to help if you need us – we don’t have a website but a qualified careers adviser is on hand to answer questions via social media – get in touch (WordPress, Twitter, and Facebook) and we’ll do our best to help.

6 THINGS YOU NEED TO REMEMBER BEFORE RESULTS DAY

1. Don’t panic!

There is nothing you can do before you get your results, so try to take you mind off it. I know this is easy for someone who isn’t in your position to say, but try to keep yourself busy until Thursday.

2. Think of a plan B NOW, just in case.

It’s always useful to have a plan B, then you will feel more prepared for results day. Make sure you know what Clearing and Adjustment are (look on the UCAS website for more information), as a minimum.

3. Check UCAS Track on Thursday.

In a lot of cases, it will tell you if you’ve been accepted into your university. If not, give your university a call. Just because your place is not confirmed on UCAS Track it doesn’t mean you haven’t been accepted. There are lots of reasons for this – you may need to send them additional information, for example.

Remember to check UCAS Track before calling the university – they will be receiving lots of calls on results day so only call them if necessary.

4. Get your results in person, if possible.

Your teachers and various other qualified staff will be at your college / sixth form to offer help, should you need it. They’re there if you need any advice, which you won’t receive if you stay at home.

5. If you really haven’t done as well as you wanted to, consider your other options.

Have you thought about doing a higher apprenticeship? Could you take a year out? Do an extra year of studies? How about looking at a different course or studying at a different institution?

6. If you are going into Clearing, don’t panic!!

Plenty of students have gone through Clearing and have a brilliant time at university (me included). There will be lots of students in this position, and it can be stressful, so try to gain the advice you need from qualified staff at your school/college and reputable websites, but also make sure to take a step back and think about the decision you are making.

Best of luck on Thursday!

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!

Choosing Your University

This is Katie’s newest post, on how to pick the university that is right for you. Subscribe to get all of Katie’s posts direct to your inbox as soon as they are released.

In the UK there are over 300 different places you can do your degree. Not all of these are universities; there are also colleges of Higher Education and Further Education colleges that offer higher education courses… all a bit confusing to say the least, so this article will focus solely on universities and choosing the right one for you.

I asked a few friends what they thought, and came up with a list of things to consider (they’re not in order of importance, because that applies differently to each individual):

1. Location: where is the university? How far away is it from you? You might think you want to get as far away from your home town as possible, but train fares can be very expensive. And what if someone in your family gets ill suddenly or you need to get home to attend a wedding? How much will it cost you? And what if you get homesick and just want an afternoon with your mum – will she be willing to drive all that way?

2. The place itself: think about your ideal surroundings. Do you think you would be better off in a bustling city, or would you prefer to be somewhere with lots of green fields and cows? I’ve lived in a small market town all my life, and personally I don’t know if I could cope with seeing big grey buildings all the time. Or is that just me?

3. Job opportunities: if you go to a place with lots of bars and pubs, you’re more likely to secure a bar job. In a smaller place it might be more difficult to find a job, so make sure you factor this in when you’re picking your uni. Do some research about the job opportunities in the area – http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/ is perfect for this.

4. Entry requirements: it might seem obvious, but make sure the entry requirements are right for you. Are you SURE you can get those grades if you work really hard? It’s also worth checking if the uni works on UCAS points or just grades – if you have grade 6, 7 or 8 in an instrument/theory you can get points to put towards getting into uni, and the same applies to lots of other qualifications such as dance, horse riding and BTECs. Look at the UCAS website for full details, and check with the universities you are considering.

5. Accommodation: if you’re not picky about where you’re going to be living then it doesn’t matter as much, but if you want your home comforts you should check out the accommodation the uni has to offer. Some websites have virtual tours, and you can find reviews and ratings of various sites such as http://unistats.direct.gov.uk/ and http://www.whatuni.com/. Some universities guarantee accommodation for first year students, others don’t, so check if you need to be prepared for finding your own.

You can find a list of all the universities and higher education places (in the UK) here: http://www.ucas.ac.uk/students/choosingcourses/choosinguni/instguide/