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We apologise for the wait but we promise that we’re working hard to build a great Life After Uni service and provide solid support for grads and final years.
Welcome back graduates! Life After Uni had a great vacation and now we’re back for more. Apologies for the delay in delivering the new website, we’re working on it.
Now, graduate gymming! Gyms have surged in price, I can’t find anything for less than £40 a month or a contract-free subscription. So I’ve come up with a neat little list of stuff you can do / try / buy that won’t break the bank and will help you to feel trim and toned as you walk forth in Life After Uni. Remember to consult your GP before undertaking new exercises.
Very neat, check this out. I’ve never been a fan of skinny exercise mats, this one is about an inch of foam so will provide great support, as well as being almost six foot in length, compared to most mats that are four feet or so. It also has some exercises printed on it to get you started! Have a look around other sites to find a mat for your budget. Will be helpful when it comes to hitting up YouTube for exercises (below).
A blessing in disguise. Discount sports shopping for every style and size. The bigger stores have a running department with footwear experts that can advise on the right shoe for your type of step, weight or style of exercise. I purchased these and they are looovely, it feels like you’re bouncing on air. So £28 for a decent pair of running shoes that actually look all right with jeans too. I’ve also bought a couple of pairs of tracksuits, sports underwear, swimming caps, goggles, tennis t-shirts – and I never quite feel guilty as, at 90% off sometimes, it definitely suits my budget.
eHow has made this channel – pretty neat, have a look around. The yoga one is a bit weird, but they’ve got vids for ab and strength workouts. My favourite however is Nike Training Club - it has an iPhone only app (guh) but their YouTube channel is awesome. Two hundred or so drills to make your heart race. I was thinking of opening them on my phone and taking it to the park because my living room definitely isn’t big enough.
If you live in an area that is benefitting from the sports influence of the Olympics this year, you might find some council funded sports facilities that are considerably cheaper than private gyms. Try Googling something like the name of your council + sports + free gym. They may also offer classes, swimming pools, or have local teams that need new members. This is a good way to get out the house to train for cheap as well as maybe meeting some like-minded sporty people.
Now let’s get out there and get fit fit fit!
I go away for three days over Christmas, returning home in less than perky mood, having just broken up with my girlfriend (among other things). House is much as I expect it to be as a student; cluttered but comfortable. Last man/woman out tied up the rubbish bag, but forgot to actually take the damn thing outside. I grumble and walk out in my socks to introduce said rubbish to the bin, except it isn’t there. SHOCK. HORROR. I have a quick look around but the dustbin is nowhere to be seen. I wonder what soulless creature could steal another man’s dustbin, as I grab my shoes and go searching for something green and smelly on two wheels. Unfortunately we did not mark our dustbin, which makes my task somewhat difficult. I also look like a crazy person examining people’s generic council-approved dustbins. To further hinder me, I notice many houses have more than one dustbin, as if they all got a new one for Christmas from the Binman Fairy (well, it is Brighton). Finally, I find what I assume to be ours halfway down the road, empty. I feel somewhat shifty walking it back to my house, not truly knowing if it’s really ours. As if to make some sort of point, I promptly stuff the full rubbish bag into the newly rescued bin. Almost like christening it or something. I sit in the front room and occasionally look out slightly paranoid, half-expecting someone to steal it back. My housemate comes by a few minutes later, and upon hearing my struggle grabs his spray can and proceeds to tag our bin, once and for all. I wonder if he’ll stop there, thankfully he does. We don’t need some sort of council-estate turf war over dustbins, after all…
The Guardian published this last week. It mentions that essentially 25 to 34 year olds made up a quarter of 44,000 debt relief orders granted in the UK over two years.
The DRO can pay off a debt of up to £15,000 but comes with a price – you won’t be able to get credit for years and it doesn’t pay off student loans. But what I thought about is, for example, postgrads who take commercial bank loans to pay their fees and don’t find paid work after graduation. These loans usually come with high interest rates, high rates of monthly repayments and no flexibility if you can’t afford to pay back.
The article says that student loans are in part responsible for getting people used to borrowing large amounts from an early age (and perhaps also getting used to not paying them back), so where the 25-34 year old a generation ago would have been more settled financially, the outlook is “bleak” for today’s young people.
It is also becoming increasingly easy to borrow money that people might not be able to afford to pay back. Some students spend three or four years living off a free overdraft, but by the point of graduation, their bank demands the sum to be paid within a year or two and the graduate could fall into trouble if they can’t pay up.
Debt is a difficult topic to advise on because people earn and spend in different ways and some people who owe money may not realise they’re in trouble until it’s too late. The Guardian’s article links several debt advice providers, to which I would add The Site as a source of digestable, young-people-relevant advice.
However, there are some basic things that everyone who’s looking at financial trouble can do:
1. Tell someone: talk to your parents. It’s hard, I know, but once you’re out with it and the mild interrogation is over, they’ll be strategising and making phone calls like a bad episode of the Apprentice.
2. Talk to your bank (or to your other money-lenders). Giving them a heads up won’t mean that you’ll necessarily get relief, but they can and do try to hold back on things like fines and extra fees.
3. Work out if you really need to borrow money. This takes a calculator and a fair bit of brutal self-honesty about spending habits. If there is a financial lifeline that doesn’t involve loans or credit cards, consider taking it, whether that may be a second job, borrowing from parents, or decreasing the amount you spend.
As far as graduate life supposedly advocates independence, it shouldn’t reflect badly on a person if they choose to seek help with money-related problems, or any kind of problem at all. Parents may judge but are very likely to help; banks may find ways to help prevent the slide into further debt. Check out the links on Guardian or The Site for more info, and happy spending.
I have been asked to write a response to the article ‘Stop Protesting #2’, posted on 27 December, which you can find here.
In this article, the writer asks “what have you gained from protesting?” They argue that student protest fosters nothing but violence and does not achieve its aims. Rather, “people got hurt, laws may or may not have been broken and policy-makers didn’t change policy.”
I’m not going to insult the writer’s intelligence by pointing out that this is probably the worst moment in the past decade to suggest that protest is futile. We are coming to the end of a year that has seen explosive and engaging protests catch fire across the world. And this isn’t just the Arab Spring; from Wall Street to Moscow protestors and the things they have achieved have dominated the newsreels and social media.
Yes the Arab Spring was bloody, and will continue to be. But so were the dictatorships it has already overthrown. Yes laws were broken, but so were the corrupt law makers who imposed them. It is a tidal wave that is still being felt in Syria, has touched Russia and has left its mark on Egypt and Libya, to name but a few.
But, as I said, I will not insult the author’s intelligence. Rather, the writer focuses on student protests in British universities and so will I.
The writer calls on three examples of recent student protests to illustrate her point and I will tackle these.
The University of Sussex sit-in at Sussex House in 2009/10 was one of many protests at the time, both at Sussex and in unis across the country. Students broke in to the Vice-Chancellor’s office, amongst others, and staged an occupation. Yes, this was trespass, but the heavy handed response of university management who called 13 police riot vans complete with the full array of police, dogs and FIT camera was ridiculous. That was the reason people got hurt. However, this isn’t to say it didn’t have an effect.
Yes, those protests had no direct effect on the raising of tuition fee limit. And yet, the repercussions of what they achieved are still being felt. It was as a result of this collective wave of public protest that many MPs signed the pledge not to raise fees. The cynic in me suggests this was a shallow pledge to garner wandering student votes. Maybe so, but its legacy survives as yet another pledge broken by the men we voted into power. Protest is not about immediate change, it is about a slow, chipping and scraping away at the bottom of a tower which eventually causes that tower to collapse.
Similarly, the protest that saw an estimated 50,000 students, lecturers and supporters march in London in November 2010 was the largest student led protest in the UK since the 1990s. There was violence, which was lamentable, and people and buildings were damaged. It was perhaps only fortunate that serious injury or a fatality was avoided. Nevertheless, whether you condone it or not, that protest served its purpose. It got people debating, and debate must be the first step to change. The purpose of protest is to raise awareness. And raise more awareness. And continue shouting until the people who can make change can’t stuff their hands in their ears anymore.
The Bloomsbury students who attempted to utilise a disused building as a community space were forcibly evicted by bailiffs. Yes, they could have raised money or lobbied the university or surveyed students, but they didn’t. What they did do was loudly say what they wanted in a way that wasn’t harmful to anybody or damaging. They occupied and negotiated and it was the university’s fault that the doors got knocked down by men in helmets. What they achieved was recognition and if it brought the issue back onto the negotiating table then that can only be a good thing.
Protest can be damaging and violent, and sometimes this is needed, but it can also be peaceful and constructive. To dismiss all protest out of hand because there have been no immediate results is short sighted. The writer argues “people got hurt, laws may or may not have been broken and policy-makers didn’t change policy.” However, just because it didn’t change policy, in these examples, does not mean it won’t, or can’t. Protest certainly can’t be dismissed as “idealistic noise”. Look at Egypt!
I agree with the writer that necessarily change must be effected from the top. Getting involved with policy makers and pushing them to mould policy in the way you’d like can be an effective way of making change happen. The arts of diplomacy and compromise are sometimes the way forward. However, we are not all politicians, and unless people shout and push and protest about something how will the “policy-makers” ever know what it is we, the electorate, want done? They may not do it but we can at the very least tell them. One day, near an election, they might listen.
We are privileged enough to have a voice, and because of that we should use it. The writer has used this blog platform to use hers. Others protest by getting involved with focus groups, volunteer and work with think tanks, but these people are, necessarily, the minority. We use our voices by standing in the street and shouting about what we want and to dismiss this is infantile. It took a few people in a park to start but the repercussions of Occupy Wall Street were felt across the world. Don’t forget that.
This is an issue that gets raised more often among the graduate community because it is a common yet slightly dubious way to get jobs. I’ve been speaking to grads from different backgrounds who want to work in different industries and all have mentioned that people who know people are more likely to get the jobs they want.
Bad or good?
It saves the application process, the stress, the insecurity and gets grads into work, most likely in the fields they want to be in. Also, the relationship born out of those connections can prove helpful, as the work-provider-person can become a long term mentor for the graduate, providing advice or further career opportunities. On rare occasions, positions can be created for graduates with particular skills or talents.
Issues have been raised in the past about employers who are persuaded to hire a person because they already know them. Although this is the point of nepotism, it has a knock-on effect for other applicants who tried their best but get rejected not because they were inadequately skilled, but because they didn’t have the advantage of already knowing the employer. Certain cases have also involved people who were promised work but were then dismissed, with the work being offered to candidates who once again knew the employer. This kind of process may also cause companies to unintentionally hire people who don’t have the right skills for the job.
Meeting more people through networking is definitely a good place to start. Networking can happen anywhere but requires confidence, a set of business cards and keeping ears wide open for job news before they hit the wire. Try Dreamstake, Meetup or Eventbrite to look for networking events in your area. Also try your university or high school’s alumni association as they can put you in contact with alums in the right industries. If you get to the stage where you have one-to-one meetings, treat it like interviews but don’t panic and remember that if you’ve made it to that stage, you are in a unique position and can offer something special to the company. So be yourself. For tips on good networking technique, try this or hang tight for a new post about networking technique.
Nepotism has its positives and negatives but the general practice of meeting people should always be positive. It shouldn’t be stressful and try to remember that productive networking, instead of job applications, will require time to meet the right people with the right work. Much like boy/girlfriends, you are most likely to find a good connection or job lead when you’re not looking.
That’s it from us for today. Good luck out there!
The post Stop Protesting #2 has gone a bit viral and has been subject to attack. Let’s address a few things.
- It’s an opinion. We are all allowed to have one. If you would like to attack the post, attack the facts if they are wrong, but don’t attack opinion; it is individual.
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- The open poll has now been removed due to abuse and will be updated shortly.
Comment on the opinion of the author and libel:
The author chose to express an opinion about why protesting could be considered to be unproductive and harmful as well as offering potential alternative approaches to delivering change. Both aspects of the post have been subject to abusive comments, which is not acceptable. Furthermore the author has been accused of libel, therefore has temporarily removed the post for editing. There will be no further responses to abusive, harassing or mocking comments. The post will be republished shortly and, as always, will be open to comments and questions written in the spirit of debate, not abuse or argument.
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It was inappropriate to put the critique in the main section of the website. It is being moved, along with the rest of the critiques, to the page called Comments. Apologies for confusion.
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I read this. Of course, this post extends a bit from this. Read both, or neither, but I wish to discuss protesting.
This issue affects students as well as graduates and I write strictly from opinion, as an observer of the Bloomsbury sit-in at SOAS, the Sussex Uni protests and sit-ins in 2010 and the fees protests in November 2010. In each of these situations, people got hurt, laws may or may not have been broken and policy-makers didn’t change policy.
Hence, the million dollar question: what have you gained from protesting?
Example 1
In the Sussex sit-in a couple of years ago, a group of protesters broke into an administrative building and may or may not have been responsible for the theft and leaking of financial documents online. Police were called to remove the protesters from the building and some of them were subsequently put on academic suspension and banned from campus. In conclusion? Half a dozen students suspended from university, administrative staff intruded upon and possibly attacked in their workplace, cops on campus, arrests made and little change to fees, university spending, or whatever else the protest was about.
Example 2
The Bloomsbury protesters occupied a disused building in disputed ownership, attempted to transform it into a social space, but got forcefully evicted by bailiffs and university management. Again, people got hurt, the protesters were frightened, bailiffs were on university property and this hasn’t yet helped the ownership issue of the building.
Example 3
The November 2010 protests against the rise in university fees attracted crowds of hundreds of thousands in central London. Some arrived and left in the same condition, others, for reasons unclear, were kettled, tasered, beat up, dispersed and suchlike. Result? People got hurt, the city was trashed with potential damage to local or small businesses, police resources were focussed on the area where they could have been used elsewhere and finally, the fees increased.
Let’s reiterate from the top: people got hurt in all three protests and policy-makers didn’t rewrite or edit policy. So what has been gained? If you’re going to sit-in somewhere or occupy a building, odds are the law isn’t on your side and you can’t honestly say you weren’t expecting to be evicted. Nor is it acceptable under any circumstances to acquire private documents and publish them online. Finally, it is becoming more evident that protesting has little to no effect on policy change.
If there’s one thing I do understand about protesting it is that it is lively and attracts attention, albeit at times for the wrong reasons. But still, where this may have changed something twenty or thirty years ago, it has little effect today. Even internet campaigns run by Amnesty International struggle to succeed. What has changed? I don’t know precisely, but I think policy-makers got bored of listening to protesters and are no longer threatened by them. Some might say that policy-makers need to listen to protesters no matter what, but it cannot be easy to do that when some protesting is idealistic noise.
Let’s expand on that too. How much of what protesters say is a) what they want, vs b) how to get what they want. They protest to ask/demand certain changes, but without offering tangible and measured solutions on how to get there, they might be disregarded simply because it’s hard to describe a path that fulfils their demands. Research is, always has been and always will be, the key to success in any matter.
We’re almost there. Is protesting productive? I struggle to see how. We have already observed that protesters get hurt and laws get broken and policy doesn’t change because no path to change gets offered up. It consumes civil resources in terms of police and security, gets people arrested and has an indirect impact of the lives of those not involved. Can the effort:productivity ratio be improved in different ways?
One last thing is the (ab)use of the word “solidarity”. Yes, it is being used in the correct contexts according to definition, but so much so it is almost tacky. And, commenting specifically on the writing of “Eviction” (up top), I couldn’t digest half of what you’re trying to say.
With this, I conclude simply by saying that the modern protest should not be loud, intrusive and disruptive, it doesn’t need to be. The modern protest should, in my ideal, represent a focussed group of people who work productively to achieve their goal. Instead of sitting in Bloomsbury, why not offer the same volunteer hours to SOAS to resolve the disputed ownership, or survey students for ideas on what the centre should be used for, or find ways to raise money to contribute to building plans that are actually needed. Instead of protesting to disturb and disrupt, mutual respect is needed among all students and management in order to even have the opportunity to discuss policy changes. Whatever the issue, here it regards fees, a genuinely balanced perspective is needed before people think of arguing back. Okay, so fees are £9000 – but loans are available to everyone to cover all fees, interest rates aren’t terrible and don’t get me started on what international or US students might have to face without the prospect of student loans.
This is my form of protest. Now, I’m going to go promote this online so I can push my Klout, write a business plan and eventually turn a profit big enough to pay off my student loan and employ other talented, productive graduates.
Edit: as mentioned in the disclaimer and in previous posts, this is strictly my opinion although it contains facts from other sources. I respect free speech.
I ask this question in all openness and brutality and I ask, nay, beg, for an equally open and brutal answer.
Graduate job profiles always seems to say the same thing: be ready to hit the ground running, responsibility from day one, hard work from the word go. Further bumffed with: minimum 2.1 any degree, extra language, motivated, driven, focussed, teamwork, creative, organised, [insert further thesaurus-based adjectives here].
Almost all of us have 2.1s, a large proportion have extra languages and somehow when we put the effort into writing applications, given we have a bit of work experience or volunteering, we will be able to match your job description with a similarly flowery cover letter.
What do you actually want from me / us? Do you want me to be myself at interview and criticise your lack of CSR and give you a ten minute SIFE overview? Or shall I put on a facade that your HR person would like just so I can try to get through to the next round? I want to work in marketing, my experience is minimal but not fabricated, yet apparently the several dozen failed interviews I’ve been to would suggest I mightn’t belong there. If I want to work in marketing and I’ve got the experience, what has Joe Bloggs got over there that I don’t?
This isn’t an attack on graduate employers but a criticism of the current system. I think it excessively emphasises experience and disregards potential. It asks for passionate intelligent individuals yet those in particular get turned away.
I speak for myself as well as other unemployed graduates when I say, if my record is flawless, my grades and experience are there, I know what I want to do and why I want to work for you, then what else can I do? Careers advisers always say to make your application stand out, but short of posting in a crate of neon I feel there is little more I can do than write succinctly and check my commas. Therein exists another insecurity: do recruiters even read applications properly?
Then, at interview, how do you want me to act? Do I need to be obnoxiously loud and recite an autobiography within the first ten minutes (increasingly observed at group interviews and assessment days)? Can I show you my humourous cynical side or is that not allowed? Do I need to tell you your hair looks great and I want the name of your aftershave?
Applications and interview processes are becoming increasingly more selective and in-depth, so forgive me but permit me to become sharp and detailed with my questions. They are matching the quality of application questions that I try to answer. In addition to this, graduates usually spend around two weeks in solitary confinement completing one application, therefore I feel it is necessary for recruiters to give feedback on applications and interviews. It is evident that you are swamped with work, but you will get more applications to process unless you help graduates correct their original mistakes. I would imagine that you prefer less, high quality applications than more, low quality applications – so help us get there. In this vein, grads put quality instead of stress into their applications and have a chance of progressing.
There are even application processes which put me off applying for jobs, others that when completed I feel like I don’t even want the job anymore and then those dire rejections that encourage re-application the following year.
However, it’s not all bad. The Saatchi & Saatchi summer scholarship process is perhaps the best I’ve seen so far, as well as being fair, giving room for error and improvement and measuring potential instead of experience. This should be a base model for all employers and I think it needs to be implemented as soon as possible.
Let’s return to the original question: what do you want from me? The comments, ratings, contact and poll sections are all OPEN to receive what you have to say. And to prevent any doubt, I read them all and reply to them individually.
I want to hear what you have to say.
Written by Life After Uni
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