Amrit Virdi
In a world where we constantly have to worry about the future and the next step that we are yet to take in our lives, it’s safe to say that students across the world feel a constant pressure to craft an impressive repertoire of employability skills and partake in work experience whilst balancing success in their full-time degrees.
But with the job-market looking as bleak as ever in the covid-era and students facing the risk of mental burnout, are societal pressures all becoming too much?
From a young age, we have been faced with the prospect of ‘what we want to be when we grow up’ and have been told to study hard to increase our job prospects.
Yet nowadays employers are less and less concerned with the degree that we graduate with as the job market gets more and more competitive.
Sleep, study and socialising are the three key aspects of University life, and maintaining a balance between these alone can be a struggle
With there being 100 candidates on average applying for the same role, and the majority of them being high-achieving graduates with their firsts and 2:1s at the ready, the pressure to build up an impressive CV is at it’s peak.
Sleep, study and socialising are the three key aspects of University life, and maintaining a balance between these alone can be a struggle.
Throwing in internships and work experience leads to students having a nearly unattainable lifestyle, yet I feel as if I can speak for all students when I say that my future career prospects after university are always in the back of my mind.
The job search can be monotonous and tiresome. With countless emails from job boards filling up our inboxes and our remaining days of student life dwindling, there seems to be a pressure to make our CVs impeccable during our remaining time at University.
From joining countless societies and becoming a committee member to volunteering, it seems that studying for a degree in which your passion lies becomes overshadowed by trying to boost your employability skills.
If there is too much to juggle, remember that it will be worth it in the end
With millions of students going through this same struggle, the application process is undoubtedly hard and consists of many rejections.
Disheartening and frustrating, it’s hard to not be disgruntled by the process; especially in the case of work experience where one is often applying for unpaid internships and having to fork out for accommodation themselves and still ends up getting rejected. And with many employers seeking people with experience in a particular field but being unwilling to give students their first jobs in such occupations, the search can feel pointless and never-ending.
However, whilst it may feel as if there is too much to juggle, remember that it will be worth it in the end. Partaking in extra-curriculars to boost your CV whilst studying hard to get a degree from a highly-acclaimed University will result in excellent employability skills to showcase in job interviews.
So when questioning if you are doing enough, remember that you are not alone in the struggle and that the University’s fantastic Careers and Employability Service is there to help you every step of the way.
Amrit Virdi
Featured image courtesy of Wes Hicks via Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.
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