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I am an unemployed graduate, AMA

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Reply 1
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Pulse.
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What advice would you give to someone hoping to avoid being an unemployed graduate?
From what kind of university have you graduated and which subject did you take? Also, are you only looking for a graduate level employment or not?
Thanks.
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Reply 4
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Original post by Pulse.
What advice would you give to someone hoping to avoid being an unemployed graduate?


Get some skills whilst at uni - preferably in customer facing roles, or in a position of authority such as on the committee of a society, as this is relevant to so many different jobs.

Also plan ahead, and decide what you'd be open to in the summer between 2nd and final year, as a lot of graduate schemes will open in the September of final year.
Reply 5
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Original post by 0123456543210
From what kind of university have you graduated and which subject did you take? Also, are you only looking for a graduate level employment or not?
Thanks.


University of Sheffield, so Russell Group but not one of the most prestigious, Hispanic Studies, 2.1. The advantage of the course is the extra languages and the experience from placement year, but the disadvantage is the lack of obvious roles to go into besides teaching (which is the one thing I don't want to do).

Original post by JamesManc
Considered porn?


No but I have, in my poor student days, considered phone sex and dancing in clubs.
Do you feel that your degree has benefitted you in any way whatsoever(outside of the experience of university). Do you feel that a degree has given you an advantage or do you feel your time has been wasted and something else may have been more fitting. I'm curious because I was going to go to university but after significant assessment of the risks it would entail in terms of time commitment/investment return, I felt it not to be the right option.
Reply 7
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Original post by marco14196
Do you feel that your degree has benefitted you in any way whatsoever(outside of the experience of university). Do you feel that a degree has given you an advantage or do you feel your time has been wasted and something else may have been more fitting. I'm curious because I was going to go to university but after significant assessment of the risks it would entail in terms of time commitment/investment return, I felt it not to be the right option.


Yes it has benefitted me, as my course involved learning other languages, and a placement year which gave me more experience than you would get in a standard 3 year course. Also, at 18 I was not mature or confident enough to seek alternative routes, so university has been a good route to independence.

As I said to someone else though, the disadvantage has been that the one obvious route for me is now teaching, something I don't want to do.
Do you feel the degree as a whole was worth it, indeed, going to university in the first place was worth it? Or would you, in hindsight, have preferred an apprenticeship/college course?

I'm trying to decide this as well. Ideally I'd like to go to university as well, but I keep changing my mind
why do you feel that in spite of all the news on how experience and extra curriculars and leadership activities are essential, most students still do literally nothing but their academic work and party? isnt this something obvious for a student to do?
Reply 10
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Original post by domlang123
Do you feel the degree as a whole was worth it, indeed, going to university in the first place was worth it? Or would you, in hindsight, have preferred an apprenticeship/college course?

I'm trying to decide this as well. Ideally I'd like to go to university as well, but I keep changing my mind


I'll give you the same answer I gave someone else: Yes it has benefitted me, as my course involved learning other languages, and a placement year which gave me more experience than you would get in a standard 3 year course. Also, at 18 I was not mature or confident enough to seek alternative routes, so university has been a good route to independence.


I'll also add this though - if I had been facing 9k tuition fees, and had been a more confident person, able to think outside the box, I would have seriously considered alternative routes, such as higher apprenticeships, alongside considering university.
Just "graduate" would have sufficed; this being 2015, we can sufficiently infer the rest.
Reply 12
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Original post by welcometoib
why do you feel that in spite of all the news on how experience and extra curriculars and leadership activities are essential, most students still do literally nothing but their academic work and party? isnt this something obvious for a student to do?


Two things spring to mind, one is sympathetic to students and one is not.

I think firstly, people over-estimate how much free time students have. Any student I know, including myself, who has balanced other things with their studies, has been pushed to the limit in terms of energy, free time, organisation etc.

Secondly, however, student life is like a bubble. It has the reputation for partying, and so people can end up filling their spare time with this and nothing else. Also, many students have grown up in households where it wasn't necessary to have a part time job, and live on support from their parents, so there has never been a financial incentive to go out and get experience.
Original post by abc:)
Two things spring to mind, one is sympathetic to students and one is not.

I think firstly, people over-estimate how much free time students have. Any student I know, including myself, who has balanced other things with their studies, has been pushed to the limit in terms of energy, free time, organisation etc.

Secondly, however, student life is like a bubble. It has the reputation for partying, and so people can end up filling their spare time with this and nothing else. Also, many students have grown up in households where it wasn't necessary to have a part time job, and live on support from their parents, so there has never been a financial incentive to go out and get experience.


i kind of agree with the first paragraph, if you study a a top university its really tough to be able to grasp everything easily with work and then have to do lots of other things too.

surely those without part time jobs have much more time to be able to apply to these schemes without having to worry about what food they can buy for the next week and living reliant on grants, like many i knew? its entitlement culture for brits isnt it? many international students who are much wealthier also work much harder outside their academics to set themselves up at university, not wasting endless time.
Original post by abc:)
Yes it has benefitted me, as my course involved learning other languages, and a placement year which gave me more experience than you would get in a standard 3 year course. Also, at 18 I was not mature or confident enough to seek alternative routes, so university has been a good route to independence.

As I said to someone else though, the disadvantage has been that the one obvious route for me is now teaching, something I don't want to do.

Interesting read there. Don't feel like you're locked into teaching though. You could be a translator in a number of roles for one. You could take your knowledge of language to use in the police force and maybe in the civil service. A big one I'd reccomend is work abroad
Reply 15
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Original post by welcometoib


surely those without part time jobs have much more time to be able to apply to these schemes without having to worry about what food they can buy for the next week and living reliant on grants, like many i knew? its entitlement culture for brits isnt it? many international students who are much wealthier also work much harder outside their academics to set themselves up at university, not wasting endless time.


I see your point, and some people definitely are like this. However the point I was trying to make was that if you financially need to get a job, you are likely to end up in something where you are working in a team, or have opportunities for leadership training, etc, whereas those who don't have that financial incentive are less likely to go out and look for any type of work experience.
Reply 16
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Original post by marco14196
Interesting read there. Don't feel like you're locked into teaching though. You could be a translator in a number of roles for one. You could take your knowledge of language to use in the police force and maybe in the civil service. A big one I'd reccomend is work abroad


Haha interesting you should mention these things. One thing I'm considering is a Masters in translation, as it's very difficult to get a job in translation without further qualifications, or at least a module in translation, of which I have neither.

I do have an ongoing application with West Midlands Police, although I'm in two minds whether to see it through, for various reasons including mental health and the impact on those around me.
Original post by abc:)
Haha interesting you should mention these things. One thing I'm considering is a Masters in translation, as it's very difficult to get a job in translation without further qualifications, or at least a module in translation, of which I have neither.

I do have an ongoing application with West Midlands Police, although I'm in two minds whether to see it through, for various reasons including mental health and the impact on those around me.


Be careful before committing to a masters degree, especially if you haven't got scholarships to fund it. Most fund a masters with a loan. I would personally see where you can take the police thing. If you can get a few years in there, you can always jump on and do a masters in a few years time with experience under your belt from the police force.
Original post by abc:)
I see your point, and some people definitely are like this. However the point I was trying to make was that if you financially need to get a job, you are likely to end up in something where you are working in a team, or have opportunities for leadership training, etc, whereas those who don't have that financial incentive are less likely to go out and look for any type of work experience.


what would you have put in place to get into students heads to stop pissing around? one stem course at my university, have recently put in a core module just based on learning skills for a workplace environment, because many, no surprise, dont have social awareness on how to do these things. did your university offer these as potential modules?
Reply 19
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Original post by welcometoib
what would you have put in place to get into students heads to stop pissing around? one stem course at my university, have recently put in a core module just based on learning skills for a workplace environment, because many, no surprise, dont have social awareness on how to do these things. did your university offer these as potential modules?


No, they didn't and I don't think I'd recommend having a module based on that, seeing as that's time you could be learning other things that are related to your course.

Instead I think it would be a good idea to make it compulsory for all students to take part in extra-curricular activities, so that at the end of the year you have to have 120 credits, in addition to having clocked a certain number of hours doing something else.

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