Heavens above
it's the RE quiz. 8/14 is your possibly very reachable target :)
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Careers update: I'd like to think there's a possibility of doing something with a semblance of fun. It seems a shame that we spend twenty years developing our personalities and interests only, it seems, to have them beaten out of us again. Do they really only serve the purpose of giving you something to impress recruiters, and then die out? Anyway, I can't see the point of bending over backwards to make yourself out to be something you're not in order to get a job that you'll hate. It would take special devotion to the cause not to be put off immediately by such questions as "tell us about an occasion where you successfully communicated with and influenced others" or "tell us about an occasion where you had to manage, plan and organise a set of tasks effectively in order to achieve an objective". Apart from anything else they might as well just replace those with "do you have a degree?"
And I'm still at a loss to understand where everyone gets their interning / world-travelling / work-experiencing / invalid-helping / conference-organising experience when, outwardly, they give every impression of spending their time either at their desks or in the Buttery...
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Careers update: I'd like to think there's a possibility of doing something with a semblance of fun. It seems a shame that we spend twenty years developing our personalities and interests only, it seems, to have them beaten out of us again. Do they really only serve the purpose of giving you something to impress recruiters, and then die out? Anyway, I can't see the point of bending over backwards to make yourself out to be something you're not in order to get a job that you'll hate. It would take special devotion to the cause not to be put off immediately by such questions as "tell us about an occasion where you successfully communicated with and influenced others" or "tell us about an occasion where you had to manage, plan and organise a set of tasks effectively in order to achieve an objective". Apart from anything else they might as well just replace those with "do you have a degree?"
And I'm still at a loss to understand where everyone gets their interning / world-travelling / work-experiencing / invalid-helping / conference-organising experience when, outwardly, they give every impression of spending their time either at their desks or in the Buttery...
posted by Z31 at 6:45 pm
21 Comments:
7/14! Oh well.
7/14, tis quite good for me.
oh, and 10/10 on the Chemistry :)
7/14, tis quite good for me.
oh, and 10/10 on the Chemistry :)
"And I'm still at a loss to understand where everyone gets their interning / world-travelling / work-experiencing / invalid-helping / conference-organising experience when, outwardly, they give every impression of spending their time either at their desks or in the Buttery..."
We get off our arses and do things rather than sit around moaning to ourselves. It's really not hard to be proactive
Some of us took a look at a graduate application form during our first 2 years at uni, thought "I have no idea how to answer those questions" and henceforth actively sought out opportunities to fill those gaps.
Some of us sat in our college bars for 3/4 years and quoted this experience as "An example of a time where you developed personal relationships to overcome a problem".
Some of us lied on our application forms, or at least embellished (see previous point).
Some of us realised that we had all of the experiences necessary without going to great lengths to do out of character things. For instance when asked to "Give an example of a time when you have had to make a difficult decision" we wrote about how after studying chemistry for 4 years we finally worked out that in fact we had no interest in working in pharmaceuticals or oil. So we had to decide what to do next. Of course, we also came up with a suitably impressive decision to complete our answer.
Some of us bumbled through our degrees in a state of near panic, pausing only to take the "downers" prescribed by our good friends in the Trumpington Medical Practice, without a thought as to what to do after we graduated. We should take a year out and work in a small shop in town earning enough money to survive while paying our parents untold amounts of respect for seeing us through our degrees. While taking this time to "find ourselves" we'll probably work out that in fact working in a shop is not a great career choice as most of the people around us are muppets. Driven on by this sudden realisation that the world actually sucks for the most part, we become motivated and find a job advising on policy for the local council.
What we don't do is fill in every application form we come across with nonsense answers because this leads to 118 rejections; mostly due to an inability to fill in application forms with any level of skill. Instead we pick 1 application form from each industry in which we have an interest and spend a good few hours filling each on in. We check that we have filled in the form having actually answered the questions asked and having kept our snide comments to ourselves. We read through the application and think "Yes, this reads as if someone awesome had written it - Oh wait, someone awesome *has* written it". A few weeks later we get invitations to assessment centres.
Regardless of which we we are, we realise that even if we do work for a faceless company, we still have our own faces.
out of interest, were the two anonymi the same person?
1) Surprisingly, I don't much care for that comment. Who are you to pass judgment on my lack or otherwise of proactivity? I don't have to justify myself to you. In fact if I were the only person who'd ever spent his university years thinking about university and not realising the extent to which this was a bad idea, I still wouldn't have to justify myself, especially to you. That said, your message is a fair one. But my remark wasn't that it was hard, just that I hadn't noticed everybody doing it.
i also got 7 incidentally.
Sherry: hello there. Are you really where my statcounter says you are? It's hard to say whether the two anonymi are congruent (does that make sense?) - if not, there's only really one other person the second one could be, but unfortunately it's one of those run-of-the-mill IPs that's hard to recognise!
2) OK, your first four paragraphs are fair enough. Your fifth is rather unpleasant. I couldn't (and of course wouldn't) name anyone to whom the 'downers' case applies and don't understand your sarcastic remark about parents. Your sixth, whilst informative in parts, is fairly confrontational. And I still disagree. One can't possibly have the self-confidence to assume that one only need apply to one firm per industry, surely? (Remembering that part of my reason for not making big plans for my post-graduation life was that until it happened I wouldn't've been so daring as to assume it would). Not to mention the implied insults to my intelligence. Someone will probably accuse me of sense-of-humour failure here, but even I could write a more diplomatic comment than that.
(I should point out that it would never have crossed my mind to look at a graduate application form in my first two years. Who knew at that age that there even were such things, or really realised that your degree wasn't open-ended? Not me.)
Sherry: No, I don't think they are the same person, having read them again.
Oh yes, and if you're [both] so sure of yourselves, why hide behind no name? Why not stand up and be counted for your opinion?
at the risk of sounding childish (which doesn't bother me) to the anonymous people... 'if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all'. I'm assuming Stephen doesn't write this blog to be insulted, so if you don't like it, or him, don't read it. Sorry to get all annoyed, but people don't deserve to be spoken to like that.
To summarise, Thursdays aren't the best for me! I've been thinking for some time of moving to a less accessible / more anonymous blog, especially given that the main point of it is to share my thoughts with such of my friends as care to hear them. We'll see.
does that mean I can get a peek into a more private blog?
Hehe, yeah probably. For now I'm just trying not to write about how depressed I am for all the world to read! I will try to finish my account of the other weekend in Cambridge, though.
I take it the lack of random phone calls means you didn't get lost near Bristol...
actually made it to cornwall without major incident. that and alex didn't give me your telephone number!
the internet is a free world. part of the advantage of that is one can write what one likes. some people just need a kick up the arse and that can't always be nice to hear but sometimes it has to be said. anyway, sorry for offence caused. i reckon u should just make something of ur life rather than sit around moaning, but each to their own.
Trust me, I might sit around moaning but I don't just sit around moaning. I have a lot of irons if not in the fire at least somewhere near the hearth rug. And I figure a few months of careful deliberation now might well pay off in the future if they help me to make a better decision. As I always say, there's no hurry to get things done right now unless you're about to die, in which case why bother anyway?
Oh and I'm all for the 'defend to the death your right to say it' malarkey but I still don't think I quite agree with free anonymous speech.
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