Languages

"Sometimes I have the impression that all things in our life happen accidentally. So it was with my first job. After my penultimate year of study I decided to gain some work experience during holiday so that my graduate CV wouldn't look too empty or poor. I wasn't looking for any job but for one that could help me to learn skills useful for my future career.

I was looking and looking, sending many applications not only in my home city but everywhere in the country - with no positive effect. I was close to giving up when one day at the end of September (so the new academic year was close) I found a job advert pinned to a board at my university department. It was an office job for persons with foreign language skills so exactly what I was looking for. I wrote down the email address and at home prepared a covering letter. But when it came to sending it, I started to have doubts if it still had any sense, the academic year would soon begin and I wanted to concentrate on studies. I decided not to send the application and wanted to click on 'delete' but somehow by accident I clicked on 'send' and the email with the application was sent!

After almost three months of looking for jobs without any positive result I wasn't expecting much this time. However, after two weeks I got a phone call and was invited for an interview. After the selection procedure that included a small test in foreign language I got the job. It was a part time one so perfect one for a student. Not only have I gained useful work experience, but also my graduate job as straight after my graduation the company offered me a full time employment. So, in fact, I didn't need to look for the first graduate job as I found it even before graduating."

MONIKA, UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD

"I graduated in 2009 with 2:1 in linguistics following which I considered my areas of interest, my experiences and modules I had enjoyed most within the course. I have had a long term interest in working with those with special needs particularly children and wanted to build on and use the experiences I had gained prior to starting my course when working at a special needs boarding school. Over the summer I chose to broaden my experiences by spending some time voluntarily with a speech and language therapist working with both adults and children. I applied for a number of assistant speech and language therapy posts and work as a teaching assistant with special needs children.

After a number of interviews and gaining further work experience working with special needs children during a summer holiday play scheme I was surprised to gain a place on a postgraduate speech and language therapy course in Colchester at Essex University. I was apprehensive about taking this as it was further away from home and I knew no one in the area, but a year on and I can safely say I have no regrets. I would defiantly make the same choice again, I am really learning a lot and find it hard to believe in a year's time I will be a qualified speech and language therapist. The next year poses many challenges as the course focuses only on adults - an area which I have little experience in and I am uncertain as to how much I will enjoy this. This course so far has definitely built on my previous experiences, which have also significantly helped me within my present studies."

CHARLOTTE, UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

< BACK

©GRB 2012
DASHBOARDLogin