When you hit adulthood and are expected to follow a traineeship or higher education program you may feel lost as to your purpose there. You also may wonder what the best approach is to higher education for your career prospects. Whilst excelling academically is obviously a way to increase your chances of impressing, the old adage of college and university being about the hands you shake as much as the grades you make still applies. And there are always interesting opportunities to help maximise your professional potential whilst still studying.
College or university can be an intimidating place so thinking about your career just as you start is not a prerequisite – often staying in the program is. But you still want to have the following information in mind when starting to think about what to do after you have graduated.
Networking at college or university
Whilst remote study is becoming increasingly a trend, the attraction of many educational establishments is the fellow students and professors you will meet and be able to bounce ideas off from or co-operate on research projects. You may learn more from honest interactions with fellow students than reading out of your textbook!
Your relationship with professors in particular is crucial though. You may often feel intimidated, especially as a young adult straight out of high school, about approaching them. But demonstrating that you have academic interests is vital in being taken seriously intellectually. What’s more, you won’t just get a reference letter but also a strong contact to have in the future for advice or help.
Make sure too that after your studies you subscribe to any alerts about Alumni events. Alumni are former students like you and Even if you move to another location there could be some fellow Alumni who have a job on offer. Events hosted by Alumni networks are also great ways to network and find alternative career paths.
Using your career services center
Most universities will have a career services center. These centers are made for helping you with career options. They usually have a strong network of professional and public opportunities. They are also there to help you find a career path if you have hesitations or questions.
You can maximise your chances of work by approaching your careers services regularly towards the end of your studies. They will have strong links with local industry and, if prestigious enough, potentially beyond. Career services are in the know about career programs funded by regional, national or international governments that will facilitate your way on to the labour market. They can also revise your CV content, of which we have templates here to start you off.
Taking courses that maximise your skills
It goes without saying that your course selection should reflect your core interests. If you are already targeting a certain career though, it’s always good to keep in the back of your mind what skills will be transferable. Some universities have a clear distinction between skills courses and core courses, whilst others do not. But for the most part you will have research skills courses that can act as ways to pursue skills that are useful to your career such as :
- Writing courses : helps improve your academic writing skills, but you can also apply some of these skills to professional writing later on.
- Statistical analysis skills : learning how to undertake a population analysis for example is now becoming essential to any employee’s skillset.
- Qualitative or textual analysis skills : these are perhaps less used that quantitative analyses in the workplace.
- Software package skills : with the skills above you will likely be accompanied by a software program that you can master. Ask your teachers in the subjects if you can take extra courses.
Other skills such as treating primary documents, game theory, negotiation skills.
Make sure you show you applied these skills to academic subjects, not just in a theoretical context, and also that you know how to re-apply these skills to solve problems.
Other tips for higher education
- Understanding why higher education functions and the industry itself is also vital. For example, the USA has a strong Alumni focus and expects Alumni to fund and follow their alma mater.
- Interest yourself beyond your subject without focussing academically on other subjects. It’s important to have good general knowledge and understand other academic disciplines, and what’s more you learn about different methodologies to approaching problems.
- Take your studies seriously. In the end excelling at a good university is still one of the key indicators of doing well in your career, regardless of your network.