And so my life as an unemployed graduate begins! For those of you who don't know me, I'm Jackie and I've just finsihed my Physiotherapy training at St George's. I have kept a blog of my 2nd and 3rd year and thought I'd keep one now I'm qualified.....although I have to say I haven't been the greatest blogger till now it has been quite cathartic (sp?) for me and many of the things I've initially typed up have never actually been posted. Sometimes its just nice to get things written down and off your chest even if noone else ever sees them.
So, a quick background for me, for those who haven't read my previous blog. I started my physiotherapy training at St George's when I was 22. I had spent the last 15 months before then working as a Physiotherapy Assistant in Mental Health and prior to that I had completed a degree in Sports Therapy at the University of Hertfordshire. In the end I decided sport wasn't for me, I wanted 9(strangely enough) to work on wards and be around sick (!) people so I decided Physio was the way to go. It wasn't my first attempt at Physio, I had applied when I was 18 but didn't get the grades to get in hence my other degree, but I did very well on it which enabled me to get a place.
So I've finsihed my training and am now looking for a job. I've only been looking for 2 days and already I'm annoyed by not being able to apply for jobs that I want! Many of the jobs require you to have HPC registration already and seeing as you can't get that until you have your final degree grading, which for me isn't for another 4 weeks, it makes applying for jobs very hard and just gets you frsutrated as jobs you'd love to apply for are just passsing you by. Still, my first attempt at my personal statement is done, I have a meeting with my old personal tutor about it tomorrow for some advice and guidance, and we'll just have to see what happens. We only finsihed last week so at the moment I'm taking two weeks off from doing anything much in order to just have some R&R time, spending some of it with my fiance who has been the brunt of my stress for the last 3 years! I've got some time to refine my PS abit more, and I've booked some time to meet up with some friends I haven't seen for ages, so that'll give me a chance to relax. I'll be applying for jobs in that time but I won't be working.
After that? Who knows, at the moment I'm planning on temping until something permanent comes up. I know it could be a while especially as I'm limited to London as my fiance is unable to move because of his job. So the plan is to temp, save cash, move out of home and hopefully get a physio job.....I'm going to sign up with an agency too that takes PTA's and Band 5's so hoepfully something will come up with that too! Fingers crossed!