Year 1
1. Find a QMUL society that interests you and become actively involved - this will put you in a good position to look for a place on the committee in your second year. Alternatively, get involved in some other on campus activity: you could be a course rep, QMSU volunteer, writer for QMedia, student ambassador or undertake one of any other number of positions offered by QMSU. Equally, if you live at home you might undertake a similar position of responsiblity in your local community - through a faith group or local residents group.
2. Undertake a QProject, one day a week in a local charity, to build evidence of transferable skills that will make you more employable as a summer intern or part time worker. Our stats show us that over 93% of graduates who have undertaken a QProject find graduate work when they leave.
3. Start to explore your job options by attending on campus career events. Another way that you can do this is by getting work experience over the summer of your first year. We strongly recommend that you do 3 weeks of professional work experience by the time that you enter your second year. This isn't part-time work, it is experience that builds your knowledge and skillset in a professional environment - whether that's conservation, local council or city work. There are a few schemes offered by companies for first year that are listed on student ladder and target jobs You can also set up your own work experience through personal contacts - book an appointment with us in Careers to talk more about how to do this.
Year 2
1. If you spent first year getting adjusted to the work (or parties!) of university and have a bit of a blank CV then build up your experience throughout the year by undertaking a QProject or gaining other CV-building work experience on campus - see our work experience page for ideas.
2. Use your summer to get a 4-6 week internship. This will give you the experience to land yourself a graduate job when you leave university. Without this, you will need to spend time gaining work experience after graduation. You don't need to know what job you want to do in order to undertake an internship - you can use it to explore what you want out of a job and gain the skillset to make you 'job ready' in another area of work. Just pick something that you think sounds interesting and have a go! See the Career Options section for ideas of jobs that you could go into as a Geographer.
To find internship vacancies use QM Jobonline, targetjobs.co.uk and QRecruit (our temporary work and internship site). For finance, property/surveying and consulting applications open in October. For other sectors internships tend to be advertised from January. If you are interested in exploring work in a charity/NGO, in conversation or the environment then consider doing a volunteering project over the summer, as there may not be many formalised internships. See the Job Search resources section for ideas of where to find volunteering opportunities.
Year 3
1. Identify one or two areas that you would like to work in after graduation. In today's flexible job market this doesn't have to be your lifelong career, just something that you would like to do for the next few years after university. See the Career Options section to help you find out possiblities and book an appointment with a member of the Careers & Enterprise team (based in WG3, Queens Building) if you would like to chat this through further.
2. You can either get a job on a graduate scheme in a big company or take a graduate vacancy in a small to medium sized company (500 or less) when you leave university. Read more about the difference between those two options here. If you decide to apply for graduate schemes then apply as early as possible. Many open in August before your final year starts. Depending on the sector, schemes will close anywhere bewteen September and February.
3. If you want to undertake further study, identify possible courses and work out how you are going to fund yourself.
4. Use Careers & Enterprise for CV/application form checking for jobs/postgraduate study applications, mock interviews, practise psychometric tests for graduate schemes, information about assessment centres. We have loads of resources on our website , call us on 020 7882 8533 to book a mock interview or book online for application feedback from an Application Adviser.