It’s a jungle out there

Coming into university determined to figure out what I want to do as a career, I was shocked to find very little in terms of talks and resources in the first term to help me out. I do English Literature, and the Autumn term consisted of ‘City and Finance’ fairs, and things to do with engineering and manufacturing. I remember thinking that at this rate, after a long process of deciding which degree course to do, I wasn’t going to get very far very quickly in coming up with a career path. Fortunately, a second year English student put my worries to rest when she told me that all of the more ‘niche interests’ (basically everything that wasn’t covered in the first term) would be represented on campus in the Spring Term. Now it’s Easter and I can safely say that I am a walking and talking information point of career options.

Attending the ‘Working in Radio, Film and TV’ talk and seeing nearly the whole lecture room filled with students, I realised that the long journey ahead wasn’t going to be easy. There’s a lot of people out there who have similar interests and are looking into the same options as myself, and I know there’s some who are more certain than I am of what they want to do. It was an unnerving thought. The speakers were from a range of different media backgrounds (and most of them were called Ben). Many were Warwick Alumni, including the Producer for Capital FM Birmingham and the Head of Sales for Universal Pictures UK. Their speeches were insightful and their stories of how they reached their positions provided plenty of food for thought. Although one, a Broadcast Journalist for BBC Radio Oxford, wasn’t particularly comforting in his advice, beginning his speech with these statistics: ‘there are 369 radio stations and only 9 on-air jobs’. Lovely.

In retrospect, the ‘Publishing and Journalism’ talk both opened and shut doors for me. For some reason, my extra-curricular activities have always swayed me towards writing articles, causing many to believe I want to go into journalism. This article is a prime example. Let’s just say that journalism may be an option, but it’s not too high up on my ‘one day I want to be a…’ list. The talk helped me realise that publishing, rather than journalism might be my new course of action. But what I mainly gathered from the talk was ‘yes, it’s great that you love writing articles/reading books, but what do you know about business? If you can solve our greatest dilemma, which is how to compete with the Angry Birds app on people’s iPads, then you are more than welcome to have a seat in our Monday morning meetings’. There is a reason for why I didn’t take Business at GCSE. There’s a reason for why I never took the subject for A-Levels. There is also a reason for why I don’t understood what my brother is talking about when he’s revising for his Business GCSE exams.

One thing I took away from the ‘Arts, Culture and Heritage’ talk was that, apparently, it’s surprisingly early for first years to be sitting in the audience. We’re ‘eager’. I’ve had a gap year where I used my time to do work experience and volunteering, which I guess is the main reason why I spend so much time thinking about careers: I’ve had a glimpse and now I want a view. The talk wasn’t the only time I felt out of place as a fresher seeking more information about employment. I attended the Spring Graduate Fair in London at the start of my Easter Holidays and some of the people there were shocked to see a first year student in attendance. It angers me when I get such a reaction – I don’t think it’s ever too early to start thinking about your future. And in fact, there were a handful of representatives at their respective stalls who said they wished they were more forward-thinking whilst at university. So HA.

I would definitely advise booking an appointment with your careers advisor. I did, and I’m glad I went. It was kind of unsettling when she kind of psycho-analysed my actions and the way I expressed myself when I spoke about things, but it was a very, very insightful half an hour. Well, mine ended up being 50 minutes because I wouldn’t shut up and the advisor was too polite to tell me to do so. But it was good to be able to voice all of the different ideas and worries I had about my career, and have someone who is trained to advise me in such a situation give me that advice. She asked me to ask myself ‘What do I want from the job I want?’ and use those answers to instigate my research into a career.

That’s the one key piece of advice I took away from the meeting, and hope you take away from this article: to actively RESEARCH. ‘Research, Research, Research’ is what I now tell my younger family members when they ask me for my thoughts on what they could do in the future. Even if you set aside half an hour from sleeping/studying/partying, you can find out so much more information about potential career paths, and you’ll be better for it. I realised I wanted to do English by thinking about what I DIDN’T want to do. I’m hoping that same process can be applied to figuring out a career. When a certain job role catches my interest, I look into what that job entails, and make my decision on whether or not to pursue it after I feel I have learnt enough about it. Which is how I’ve come to the realisation that consultancy is not for me. I took some online tests to be told that my numeracy is ‘well below average’. There is also a reason for why I am not doing a Maths degree.

To conclude, I’m still clueless. I’m still very confused and undecided over what I want to do as a career, but am now more knowledgeable about what options are available for future graduates. Maybe I should take my intro joke more seriously and actually become that mobile careers information point?