Is work experience important?

I am currently studying for my A levels, and am applying to uni in a few months. However, I have very limited work experience. I have many extra curricular activities involving music, even some paid gigs, but no experience of "real" work. Is this going to be a problem?

Reply 1

Carnationlilyrose

Original post by CharlieeB

It depends what you are applying for. For medicine, dentistry, vet med, it is vital. Other things, not so much. Most things, not at all.

Reply 2

r-t

If your course and university is very competitive and prestige then yes you will not only need work experience but relevant work experience. However if you are applying to a standard university then your extra curricular activities should be enough. Just make sure you get the grades! :smile:

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Reply 3

xlizx

Original post by CharlieeB

What subject are you applying for? as said above it depends on the subject.

Reply 4

ageshallnot

Original post by r-t

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So how is someone applying for, say, English Literature (both competitive and offered by many prestigious universities), supposed to get relevant work experience???

Reply 5

SlowlorisIncognito

Original post by r-t

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This only applies to vocational courses, e.g. Medicine, Vet Med, Nursing and so on.

For many courses, it is simply impossible to get relevant work experience without qualifications and under the age of 18. Where would you expect a prospective psychology student to get relevant work experience, for example?

Reply 6

r-t

Original post by SlowlorisIncognito

Yes I meant vocational courses. You don't need work experience for psychology I know a lot of people who have got offers for psychology from good uni's without relevant work experience.

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Reply 7

natninja

Original post by CharlieeB

For getting a place on an 'pure' academic course at uni not that important (i.e. physics, english lit, history)

Getting onto a vocational course such as medicine, accountancy or engineering it's a bit more important - at a good uni/med school it is vital to have something for medicine or vet med

For getting any sort of undergraduate scheme it is really important to have some decent work experience

sweeping generalisations there but you get the gist

Reply 8

Veggiechic6

It might be a good idea to organise yourself some volunteer work. Looks good on your CV and gives you some work experience to talk about. If you can find some that relates to your degree/future career, even better.

Reply 9

SlowlorisIncognito

Original post by r-t

I'm sorry but your original post was very misleading then as you didn't specify vocational courses, which are a very small minority of courses. It's not fair to post in a misleading way, when inexperienced people come to this forum for advice.

If you can't be bothered to type out all the details in your post then why post at all?

Reply 10

CharlieeB

I am applying for either a pure science (chemistry or physics), or chemical engineering.

Reply 11

SlowlorisIncognito

Original post by CharlieeB

I am applying for either a pure science (chemistry or physics), or chemical engineering.

In this case, work experience would not be important, or even expected by admissions tutors. What would be expected is showing an interest in the subject you eventually chose to apply for outside of academic study- e.g. through extra reading or maybe a summer school.

Having paid work experience wouldn't be likely to be relevant to your application at all, as it's unlikely you'd be able to work in a relevant field under the age of 18.