October 31, 2014, by Hannah Smith
There’s a New Face in Town!
If you’re reading this right now then well done – you’ve made it to the first post written for the new student blogs! I’m Hannah, the first student blogger, and I’ll be posting here about my experiences attending careers and employability events, applying for roles, interviews, placements – everything career-related really! I’m a second year English student and I’m very much still undecided about my career goals – which you’ll see me explore more as the year goes on. My main strings of thought right now are teaching or marketing, so I’m working on getting a closer look at both this year!
The first careers event I’ve attended this term was the Careers Roadshow (you may have seen the army of employability ambassadors clad in bright pink hoodies offering free hot chocolate dotted around campus this week). I went to visit them outside George Green Library on Monday, and then had a second visit on Jubilee Campus on Tuesday when Mercedes-Benz had a stall too – very suave! But, first and foremost: I’m loving the pagemarker sticky notes embellished with the Careers team Twitter handle – very handy.
Ambition was very much at the heart of the event, with many passing students tweeting their #UoNambition from the Careers Twitter on the day.
A main ambition as it stands is ‘to be that teacher who makes a difference to their students’ lives’ – which was tweeted as you can see! It did get me (and many other students) thinking though: how will I achieve that ambition? What do I need to do this year to get me a year closer to that goal? After speaking to the employability ambassadors and the careers team, I decided that the applications I made earlier this semester for placements and schemes were exactly my ticket – more on this to follow if I’m offered places!
In terms of graduate schemes, my arm was definitely twisted by Mercedes-Benz who had recruited two (out of six!) graduates from Nottingham last year – what fab statistics for us! On speaking more closely with them, they confirmed that their approach was very much small scale and personal; they only advertise at a handful of universities and even asked my name so they could look out for a marketing application in the future. Definitely inspired; especially by the five months abroad that is included in one of their grad schemes.
It wasn’t just me who focused on long-term ambition as a result of the roadshow: one student told the employability ambassadors about his ambition to become a broker as a current third year student of economics. Following on from chats with the staff, he decided he would pursue an internship next summer – which he’s going to make a start on finding at the Internship Fair on Tuesday 4 November (I’ll be there – look out for my blog post!).
I think encouraging students to look at their long term ambitions and how they can achieve them is an excellent start to the year and has definitely got me geared up to work on my employability: I can’t wait to share my experiences with you!
That’s all for now – look out for my next post early next week on the results of my placement interview…cross your fingers for me!
Hannah x
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