For those of us doing Masters Degrees, summer isn’t really the same because we don’t hand in our thesis until September. This means that the break isn’t really a break from work at all!
However, we still get to take time off and one of my favourite pastimes at the moment is booking this summer’s holiday to Italy with my partner. We are going to fly into Milan and then spend a week visiting Venice, Florence and then Rome before flying back to the UK.
I have spent absolutely hours looking at different websites trying to find the best value accommodation, which is no easy task given how popular these places are as tourist destinations! I have managed to find some gems by using AirBnB and looking at hostels on the outskirts of the cities close to the trains which means that you save a lot of money but only have to travel for ten minutes or so to be in the city centre, which I think is a worthy trade off!
After this little roam around Italy I’m heading to Alderney for eight weeks to work for the Chief Executive of Alderney council. If you haven’t heard of Alderney don’t worry, I hadn’t either before this opportunity presented itself! It’s a tiny island (population around 2,400) just off the north coast of France and you can only get there by plane from Southampton, rather conveniently for me.
I honestly don’t really know what to expect when I get there; they haven’t had an intern before but there is the promise of some really very interesting work to be getting on with so I’m pretty excited.
Summer internships are crucial for future jobs and if you haven’t managed to find one already, keep looking. The University hires hundreds of interns over the summer to work on various projects, and your personal tutor is worth talking to because they might know of something interesting that’s become available, or even have some work for you to do themselves!
As well as all this I am also preparing to start working for the Office for National Statistics in October. It seems crazy because I applied way back in November of last year and have only recently been offered the job and assigned a start date. Having a job sorted for when I finish everything is rather wonderful because it takes a lot of the stress out of summer.
However, if you are only just starting to look around, here are some useful tips:
1. Discuss your CV with your personal tutor before you finish university for good!
2. Apply to as many jobs as you can find, even if you don’t have all the required experience. Filling in applications is great practice as many employers now provide feedback on your application.
3. Phone up the person in charge of hiring new recruits and ask them for more information about what they are looking for. Sometimes web descriptions of job postings can be irritatingly vague and speaking to someone about what they want can be really helpful, and can help you decide whether it is something you want to do.
4. Sign up to LinkedIn. While there are discussions about whether or not it is beneficial, it’s free and can’t hurt. Plus it’s essentially an online CV which can be helpful when filling in job applications because you can just copy and paste sections from it!
Plus filling in the profile is a nice way to distract yourself for an hour
My best advice is to do something awesome over summer because, particularly for us postgrads, it’s probably the last chance to have a few totally relaxed weeks without having to worry about work for the rest of our lives – which is a pretty terrifying thought!
Cake – because it’s the only thing keeping me going right now!
Good luck to everyone still working on their exams. Don’t panic because it will all be over soon!
Emma
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