Don’t be a bog-standard Uni student

I’ve just hit my 10-year graduation anniversary, so it’s the perfect time to reflect on all the things I would do differently if I could go back to being a University student.

The past 10 years have given me a lifetime’s worth of experience and in hindsight my main regret from Uni is being a BOG-STANDARD student.

By this I mean seeing Uni as a place and period in my life where I do a higher level of study, pass exams and have the qualifications needed to land a graduate role. These are the minimum things you should get from Uni!

I hope this blog will help you to avoid following in my footsteps 😀

Most of the advice is based on the ‘I wish I had’ thoughts that have popped into my head over the years, as well as reflecting on candidates I’ve interviewed for graduate roles.

And, it goes without saying, make sure you have lots of fun being a student!

Find a creative outlet and build a portfolio

Other than your course and exams, what are you doing beyond this to build knowledge and skills that will be helpful for the rest of your life?

Having a creative outlet will almost certainly build skills that you won’t be getting in your course. For example, I wish I had started this blog when I was at Uni – it was the perfect time. I have always been passionate about education and learning, especially how it can change the lives of the poorest people in our society.

Instead I started it almost 10 years later. If I had started a blog back then, I would have learned how to build and design a website, improved my writing skills, learned about videography, connected with like-minded people, made faster progress in my career etc. Who knows what it might have evolved into.

On top of this, the digital world has moved us on from the standard CV job application. There are so many opportunities to build a portfolio of work now and for many professions this can be more important than your CV.

If you’re into any form of coding (software, data science etc), then start your own github account and do some projects using open source software, including competitions (like Kaggle) and hackathons.

The key thing is to think of what space on the internet you can create to demonstrate some of the projects you are doing.

If you include a link in your job applications, then any recruiter is going to be impressed and you will stand out!

Stop using ineffective learning and revision methods

I’ve written a full blog on effective learning methods, but in summary:

1. Retrieval: Stop focusing on re-reading the same material and highlighting – practise retrieval and self-quizzing as your main study strategy.
2. Spacing: Leave periods of spaced time between retrieval to allow some forgetting to kick in i.e. don’t drill things you want to remember continuously over a short period as you will just forget shortly after.
3. Interleaving: Don’t wait until you’ve mastered a topic to move on, as interleaving multiple related topics will help you learn them all better in the end as they have related concepts.
4. Elaborate: on concepts, going beyond the basics to think about real world applications and how the material related to other topics.

These strategies will help you learn better during the semesters, enjoy the course more and avoid the last-minute cramming strategy. You will find you have to spend less time revising when the time comes as you have a deep understanding of the material and a lot of it is in your long-term memory already.

Studying effectively should improve your performance and allow you to have a better balance between study and social time.

Get the best IT you can afford and utilise it properly

Living the Pot Noodle grind is a trademark of the student lifestyle, even for the rich kids 😀

Do yourself a favour and buy a macbook air if you can make it happen. Otherwise, do your research and buy the next best thing at the time of reading this. Prioritise spending on your laptop and don’t feel scared to push the limits of your budget on this item.

I could have bought a macbook when I started Uni using my student loan but chose the cheaper option (because I was too nervous to spend more) and I regretted it.

You will thank me later once you’ve learned the importance of productivity, false economies and investing in yourself.

IT can really help to get the best out of you and make you more productive, so pair this with a cheap 24 inch monitor, mouse and power bank and you have a productivity power station.

Work with dual monitors at home and in the library if you can (bring a spare cable). You will be able to run your laptop all day long when you’re out and about with this setup. You can run the latest laptops with a powerbank, so no more scrambling for power sockets!

The last thing you need are your apps (Google suite or Microsoft office etc) and cloud storage. Organise and save all your files on cloud storage, so they are synced across all your devices. You will then be able to access study material on your laptop, phone and library computers (or any other computer) if needed. I personally use Microsoft Onedrive.

Think about your current experiences for future interviews

To land your first job, you will usually have to rely on some examples from Uni projects, part-time roles and professional work experience / internships.

The latter come across better in an interview, but what really matters are the skills you demonstrated in each experience.

I’ve heard café examples demonstrating teamwork that were great and some poor responses from professional contexts because they didn’t demonstrate anything the candidate done.

Think how you will talk about your current experience in an interview before or while you are going through the experience. Focus on teamwork, leadership and communication.

This will force you to think about what will sound good in an interview, then you can go ahead and live out these actions.

For example:

• bringing a group together regularly to collaborate as well as socialise
• making sure a group project stays on track by making a project plan etc.
• presenting your work to a wider group for feedback
• solving issues and challenges with team members
• asking everyone in the team for their thoughts and opinion for inclusion

I do this now before I start a new project or role. I think about the great things I want to be able to talk about in the future, then I try to make them happen.

Doing a dissertation project is one of the most important parts of the Uni experience, so make sure you do one if possible and use it to collaborate with others.

Develop key skills needed for the working world – both technical and soft skills

Uni is the perfect time to go beyond academic study and become a well-rounded individual ready to take on the world.

These are some of the key skills you will need:

• Networking – sign up to any schemes available to network with professionals. Reach out to people on LinkedIn if their profile looks interesting and say you would like to have a chat about their career. Meet people for a coffee and get used to talking about their experiences and your future career, ambitions and goals.
• Presenting – the art of producing a concise presentation and delivering it to a group. In my four years at Uni I only gave one presentation (and it was terrible!). Getting better at presenting only comes through practise, so you need to find opportunities. Why not turn a few of your assignments into short presentations and record yourself presenting them. When you watch the video back you will immediately see areas you want to improve.
• Being creative / innovative – there are lots of side projects you can get involved with, whether it is your own idea or another project that you want to be involved with. A lot of Unis now have innovation hubs or something similar (e.g. UCL), where they help to develop ideas that students have. These things didn’t really exist when I was at Uni, but the labour market has changed significantly over the last 10 years and there is certainly a more entrepreneurial culture amongst young people, which is great!
• Learning industry tools – if you know what industry you want to get into (at least to start with) then finding out what tools they use and learning the basics beforehand is a good idea. If you wanted to get into data analysis or data science, it wouldn’t take long to find out that R, Python and SQL are the most common industry tools used. There are plenty of ways to get involved in projects that use these tools.

Mindset

Your mindset on various things will undoubtedly change in the 10 years after you graduate. Some of these changes will have a positive impact on your life, so the sooner you develop them the better.

Here are my top ones:

• You are amazing. Hold yourself in high regard and don’t feel shy to build your brand – no one is going to blow your trumpet for you!
• You add considerable value and so you employer is also lucky to have you. I was in the take anything you can get category as a grad, which only leads to undervaluing yourself.
• You are in control of your destiny – to a large degree you choose what happens in your life and career. If you want to adapt your course, choose different modules, take a year out to work in the industry etc then make it happen. Don’t accept no as an answer, because you will realise later on in life that ‘No’ isn’t handed out equally.
• There are no limits on what you can do or achieve. Learn. Apply. Succeed 🙂

Affirmations are a brilliant way to develop aspects of your mindset to align with your life goals.

Quality over quantity when it comes to new friends

A big part of Uni is getting to know new people from all walks of life. This was the most influential aspect of Uni on me as a person. Before Uni all my friends were from inner London neighbourhoods and working-class backgrounds.

However, it is easy to get carried away and become a social butterfly. You risk not having the time to invest in building good friendships that will last beyond Uni. In reality, you will only stay in touch with 5-10 people regularly, so think about who you want these people to be and spend more time getting to know them.

Related to this, know your friends Vs your acquaintances and don’t feel obliged to go to every event you’re invited to. Just say you can’t make it. I regret saying yes to too many invites from acquaintances (birthdays, celebrations, socials etc) as I could have been doing something more productive or spending more time with my actual friends.

Some people may not agree with this one, but this is my personal reflection.