I wish I had more of an update for things I have achieved so far this year in terms of choosing my career, but as per usual I’ve just confused myself and am back at square one. Never mind, I know my “dream career” (if such a thing exists) is not going to suddenly appear to me and it just takes experience and practise to find something suitable.

I am going to China in September to teach English. I know I don’t want to be a teacher forever, but it’s a good stop-gap: I’ll make some money, get some “experience”, gain more independence, improve my Chinese and so on. No reason not to go!

After a year, I am considering the 1-year Graduate Diploma in Law in the hope of becoming an Immigration Lawyer. It’s quite a long slog though, and very very expensive. After I do some research talking to various firms and solicitors who are specialists in immigration, I’ll have a better idea (thanks to the staff at the careers office for helping me find suitable links!)

So, we shall see what happens! Good luck to me 🙂

Yes, I am blogging and, therefore, contemplating my career over the Easter holidays. Turns out it’s been on my mind a fair bit recently, which some might take to be a good sign. I take it as a growing annoyance. But anyway, contemplating I am.
Having made a much needed visit to the Careers office a couple of weeks before the end of term, I have acknowledged something I’ve been trying to deny and ignore out of existence for a while now: I want to be a journalist. There we go, the truth is most certainly out, with the help of a kind careers advisor. I have been carrying this idea around with me since producing a supplement for my local paper when I was fifteen, but have been desperately resisting the desire to write for a living in favour of searching for something more “attainable and realistic”, for these main reasons:
1. I have been fazed by the level of competition in the industry.
2. I’ve been questioning my ability in the writing department following said competition.
3. For the reasons above, I hadn’t bothered trying to gather any valuable experience. (Ok, I’m not going to pin it down to all of the above, I’ve partly just been lapping up the uni experience a bit too much to get myself organised.) And,
4. I am a little bit silly.
But better late than never. And so here I am, trying to figure out the best way to start getting my foot in the door, or a big toe at least! The careers adviser has sent me a few useful links, and I’ve been reasearching how other people from Newcastle have made themselves into successful journalists, and trying to decide what type of journalism interests me most. After a year of empty promises to myself, claiming I would attend Courier meetings, I finally swallowed my apprehension and showed up, and have managed to churn out an article for them. Hopefully more to follow there!
Easter will be spent trying to come up with a corker of a dissertation topic (I’ve been told a couple of glasses of vino will help get the creative juices flowing!) and hounding some local newspapers for work experience over summer. If there’s one thing I’ve realised, it’s that the actual DOING instead of THINKING ABOUT DOING is much easier. Now I’m finally applying myself nothing is as daunting as it seemed.
Hope you’re all having productive (and stress free!) time off 🙂 J

As a second year English Language student, who currently has very little idea where my degree is taking me, and more to the point where I WANT it to take me, I thought this may well be a good place to start…
I’m realising I can’t delay the inevitable much longer, and need to address the ever nearing prospect of life after uni (eeek!). What exactly do I do with my degree when all I know is that, put plainly, “I love to write”. Is a masters the way forward? It would certainly buy me more time to arrive at a decision…Or would experience in the world of work be more beneficial? Having toyed with these two options for the past few months, changed my mind several times, and made no progress whatsoever, I have finally come to a conclusion. I need to get some advice. And so to the careers office I am going to go. Yes, I’m aware a sensible and well organised person would have made this wise decision a few months ago, but you could say I’ve been burying my head in the metaphorical sand for quite some time. The good news is: I’m finally ready to start digging my way out in order to figure out some kind of idea about my life after uni. It’s not as far away as I thought!
Should a revolutionary light bulb moment occur I will blog it, and should I just be pondering what the future holds, I’ll blog that too…For the moment, it’s back to seminar prep.
Thanks for reading 🙂

It has been a while since I have written a careers blog, admittedly partly due to the immense amount of work which I am presently doing for my Masters, but also in large part due to the fact that I simply don’t want to have to ponder the prospect of beginning my career in the current economic climate if I can possibly avoid it .

Of course this is hardly a realistic solution to any problem, so ponder I did….

Thinking about this matter somehow put me in mind of a career path long forgotten, when I was avidly studying Robert Frost’s poetry for A Level English Lang. Lit. and, in particular, a little four stanza number entitled ‘The Road Not Taken’ which begins:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth…..

At present I see four main roads open to ‘vocationally’ geared Masters students such as myself:

1. Work in Industry
2. Another Masters
3. PhD
4. Work ‘in the area’ and pursue further study

and a decision will soon need to be made as to which road will be taken.

At the moment the clearest and most-trodden route for an Engineering Geologist is the one in to industry and a placement related directly to my Masters degree:
Sadly this path is presently obscured by the unseemly undergrowth of the recession. Whilst it is clearly always a sensible option to apply for jobs and graduate schemes throughout the year and to keep on good terms with potential employers, it is becoming increasingly apparent (by direct admission of many of the major companies) that the Geotechnical sector is reducing its intake indefinitely.

It must, therefore, be considered prudent to invest some more research time in further career ideas, and other possible paths to take.
So what about doing another MSc? More in the next instalment….

Since my last blog I have been trying to get work experience as I feel that to become employable at this moment the more experienced you are especially in my field to greater the chance there is to get a job. I have not heard back from any of the companies which is a bit disappoint not even an email to say sorry no vacancies.

I have also attended numerous careers talks that are advertised thought the school, which have been helpful especially the agency related ones. Regarding them, my CV has been sent to numerous recruitment agencies.

However, I received confirmation that my application is being furthered by one company, and not by others, but thats life ups and downs.

Well after my last blog which explained my complete lack of work experience opportunities i have been offered three different work experience placements which is fantastic and proves that gruelling perseverance is priceless!

But i also got a whole lot of bad luck the past few weeks as i broke my leg…gutted!

It happened the weekend before i was scheduled to start my first placement at the B Group a creative agency. But they were really good about it and i should be able to postpone it untill after my leg is better, i then got offered and interview for a placement in summer which is great…but then got offered another placement in the first week of easter which they cruelly offered to me then took away when they heard about the pot/cast whatever you want to call it! Although i made it very clear how keen i was and they all said that they will keep somehting open for me for when im well enough.

So basically from this little life lesson ive been given recently, if you wait long enough and try hard enough you will get what you want…but just maybe with a few little osbtacles.

I’ll keep you updated with whether i got to the placements in the end and what they were like, fingers crossed i wont break any more bones!