Although I did say it quite a few times in previous posts, university is not just about studying. I mean yes, you are there to learn and develop a sizeable body of knowledge and skills relevant for the field you’re getting your degree in, but there is a lot more beside it that you can engage with to better yourself: amazing opportunities to educate yourself further, gain valuable experience, meet new people and try new things. A lot of such opportunities helped me improve and become more confident and knowledgeable, and inadvertently made me a better student.
In this post, I would like to show you how that happened and give you a bit of insight into how extracurricular and work experience-related activities can make university a sweeter and more engaging journey for you.
Some of you might have just started your degree and feel overwhelmed at the vast list of potential activities that you can take part in when you’re not in classes or revising. Some of you might have already done a couple of years of this college stuff and think it’s too late to start pursuing new activities now. Regardless of the position that you’re in, anything is possible! I, for one, started doing all of these in my second year and I genuinely didn’t feel as though I missed out on anything. And if I didn’t struggle, then you definitely won’t.
Now that excuses are out of the way, let’s begin.
Part-time jobs are a good one to start with, although you shouldn’t be deceived by the word. Internships, placements and any work experience-related endeavours go under the same umbrella, and you might want to do one of these to improve your employability, gain new skills and improve existing ones. By the end of your final year of uni, you will obtain a certificate in your field of choice but setting that aside, what can you actually do? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What do you enjoy doing? What are the tasks you dread the most carrying out? What is your style of working? Work experience is the best way to find answers to all of these questions, which will eventually help you figure out what you want to do after you graduate. It allows you to get hands-on experience with different types of work and helps you understand what would be the most fruitful environment for you to work in. Just like with anything else in life, you really don’t know what something is going to be like until you try. And now that you are in university and you don’t necessarily rely on any professional position because studying is your priority, you can use this chance to try anything that tickles your fancy.
Work experience is also a wonderful opportunity to get out of your comfort zone. You might try something you have never done before, or something that even scares you. I have felt this way with my first part-time job at university, which required me to combine meticulous organisation and independent problem-solving with verbal communication and interpersonal skills. Although I love planning and doing to my own thing in order to provide the best quality of work possible, I was nervous about public speaking and having to interact with strangers, but this has changed once I started working. It made me come out of my shell and enjoy talking to people and working together with them in order to achieve our goals, as well as become more assertive and confident in the way I presented myself in a given social context. I do feel very grateful for having the opportunity to work in this position and learn so much in the timespan of a year.
(source: personal archive)
Volunteering is another great avenue for improvement. Unpaid work for a cause that means something to you can be rewarding from many other perspectives: you can gain knowledge, work with and learn from other people, make a change through your activity for your organisation of choice. Something that has always pulled me towards volunteering, ever since I was in sixth form, was the idea that what I did could make a big change for someone. It could be direct help, or it could just be making somebody’s day better or easier – whatever it is, the fact that you’re doing it just to make somebody else happy is truly meaningful and worthwhile. Then, the fact that you are doing new things, meeting new people, expanding your horizons in directions you wouldn’t have considered otherwise is a big perk of volunteering in itself. For most of the volunteering that I did, during sixth form and university alike, I talked to a lot of people from a wide array of backgrounds, and my experiences with volunteering opened my mind to a lot of new concepts and ideas. They also gave me the chance to help people or deliver various kinds of services for them so that, again, was heart-warming and eye-opening at the same time.
You should be able to find lots of work experience and volunteering opportunities within your university, related or unrelated to your degree. Chances are, your uni has an office or department specifically overseeing these aspects of student life, so go ahead and book an appointment with them to discuss your options. Ask questions! Also, ask around! Talking to people and networking are key ways of learning about opportunities you wouldn’t have even imagined there were out there. Of course, it’s all easier said than done, and engaging with others and seizing opportunities for improvement can feel truly terrifying at times. I know for a fact it did for me, but the fact that I am writing this post for you right now is a telling sign that anyone can do it – and so can you.
Every university usually has a students-based organisation, a union or guild or group of sorts, that supervises the quality of student life in campus and the range of activities that students can take part in if they wish. Who knows, maybe that’s more your thing! Being a student representative or leader would greatly improve your teamwork and leadership skills, as well as your communication skills and planning and organisation abilities. Although I’ve only recently started dipping my toes in these waters, I heard from people who did it at some point that they found the experience very insightful and enriching for the type of careers that they wanted to pursue forward. So again, absolutely worth giving a chance.
Another thing I’ve recently gotten more into are societies. Or clubs, if you will, which are organised groups dedicated to certain passions or interests, where like-minded individuals who share them can meet up and socialise. They could be for sports or for artistic hobbies like art or music, they could be for certain academic subjects or pastimes such as cooking, gaming or watching movies. Frankly, there is no way I can ever exhaust the list of potential societies that can exist within a university. My uni is very encouraging of pursuing sports and attending societies, and it is also very supportive of nationality-specific societies in an endeavour to embrace and celebrate diversity. In my first and second years of university, I haven’t attended societies as often as I would’ve wanted, sometimes due to time restrictions and sometimes because I felt very shy about going and talking to a bunch of strangers there, granted we had common interests. For this academic year, I made a goal for myself to go to more societies just because they are a fun way to meet new people and talk to them and learn from what they have to say. From the little bit of society experience that I’ve accumulated, I had a whole lot to learn from other people and enjoyed discussing our common hobbies and passions.
I found that, when you are working hard and showing that you want and deserve to be part of stuff, opportunities come around the corner when you least expect them. Halfway through last year, I was kindly asked to deliver a class alongside a university tutor for a seminar group of first-year students. It was my first teaching experience and needless to say, I was nervous but I also loved every second of it. It also made me realise that I would not actually mind teaching as a potential career avenue, so I only had benefits coming out of this particular opportunity. Things like this open your eyes and give you a well-welcomed boost of confidence, and I want to ride this wave for as long as I can, and go out there as much as I can and show that I want to do amazing stuff like this all the time.
If possible.
Pretty please.
Now, I think one of the most charming things about university is the general atmosphere of let’s do cool stuff with our lives floating around. There is a lot of optimism and positive energy and smiling and excitement to do this and do that, bring that change and make the world better as soon as we graduate. It is infectious and I caught it, and I do hope that I will carry it around with me wherever I go. Looking back now, it was one of the reasons why I pursued writing so fiercely and openly in the last year or so, with my blog and my book (cheeky self-promotion at its finest). Here, you’re young and you’re free to do whatever you like, and leave your mark on the world however you like, and nobody is going to judge you for your work and craft. It is somewhat different from what I’ve experienced in sixth form and what I will probably experience when I graduate, and that’s why I want to make the most out of it while I can. And as I rambled on for the last 1,500 words, seize opportunities and do my best with what I have.
I do hope that you’ve found this post useful and if there are any areas or questions I haven’t covered, please let me know! I’d love to carry the discussion on in the comments section or on social media, and hear what you have to say! Also, don’t forget to come back here on Monday, when a new post will go up like usually.
Also, my book comes out next Tuesday! Poems Gone Nuclear, my poetry debut, which you can purchase on Amazon in pretty much every country. My previous blog post was about that, so go ahead and check it out if you haven’t!
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Photo sources: personal archive.