It’s the middle of May. For final year students, you now have a number of choices regarding your future. You may not have decided what to do and feel pulled in many different directions at once. Do you go on to study a post-grad qualification? Get a job? Take a gap year? Modern students have many more options than their parents had. Here are the options available to you today.
Apply for a Post Graduate Degree
If you are considering taking a Master’s or other post-graduate qualification, you may have already been invited to a discussion group by your school or department about their available courses. We would seriously recommend attending because it will lay out course expectations, available funding and gives you a chance to discuss with faculty about how your career can develop from here. You may learn information you may not already know.
Professional Qualification
If you don’t want an academic qualification but feel you want to continue your studies, you could study a professional qualification. These are popular with business graduates. You can study and work at the same time while learning to become a chartered accountant or a business management executive. These qualifications are options for those who prefer to study something more practical that helps them develop their career.
By DLR [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Gap Year
The much maligned gap year can be useful for the right people if handled correctly. Often used in a derogatory tone by the older generations to suggest that it’s a way of avoiding work, some use them to gain valuable life experiences. Volunteering in the developing world, caring for AIDS patients or simply helping out in disaster zones can teach skills and help people find a passion. If you really do not know what you want to do, then volunteer in something you may not have considered.
Employment
The employment market is not easy for graduates at present –you may struggle to get any graduate job, let alone anything relevant to your degree, right away. That is why so many students opt to seek alternative arrangements in the immediate months following graduation and wait to apply for the right job. A mix of a non-graduate job with volunteering, a bit of travel and relaxation – all of these things can prepare you for work when the right job becomes available.
Graduate Training Schemes
Paid internships and graduate training schemes are a great option for those who have a general idea of where they want to go but are flexible as to which job they have. Often a one-year long paid role, graduate training schemes and internships are great primers and there can be a job at the end of it should you excel. The money may not be great, but they will be as well-paid, if not better paid, than the fairly typical non-graduate roles you may find yourself in for those first few months.