This journey began more
than a month before that, when I applied for this Award. I am a second year politics, philosophy and economics student at Manchester University and was
looking at the time for a competition that would somehow relate to social sciences.
I have to admit the
Undergraduate of the Year was advertised extensively in my online searches, as
it is organized by TARGETjobs. The competition is open to many fields of
study, from IT and computer science to management. Each field of study has a
sponsor, usually the biggest firms with the most potential for attracting future
graduates. Also, the usual award for the winner is an internship with the
respective sponsor company, or a one-year placement for those with placement
years, among other incentives like a free iPad with the award.
When I applied I imagined
that the competition would be rough, but only later I would find out how
amazingly devoted the other finalists were to their fields of study and future
plans for graduation. For the Arts and Humanities Award, the process consisted
of a number of tests, numerical and so on, just like for a normal application
for an internship, followed by a phone interview if you were successful.
The next stage, where
only the 10 finalists would go to was the assessment centre at Barclays in
Canary Wharf, London. Of course, by the time of the assessment, the remaining
candidates would be the most skilled and the most knowledgeable about the
sponsor, Barclays.
If you do decide to apply
for this competition, you must keep in mind that you may be a very capable
individual, but you must also do extensive research on your sponsor and
seriously consider an internship or future job with them. In the actual
assessment centre, you will again be tested on your numerical skills, your
commercial awareness skills, you might do a role-play exercise where your
knowledge of the company is tested, a presentation in a team, but these vary
from sponsor to sponsor. It is a combination between what you excel in as an
individual, your past achievements and your dedication towards obtaining an
internship with the company. It’s not enough, sadly, to be an over-achiever,
you must also present commercial awareness.
When I think about the
whole experience and the competition, I feel that I have a lot more to learn
and to dedicate my free time to. The people I met were from very diverse degree
backgrounds, someone was studying english, another was studying war studies and
so on, yet they all achieved so much in their two years in university and all
presented exceptional commercial awareness. The employees from Barclays were
great as well, really friendly and talented individuals, willing to help and
give advice at any stage of the programme.
I strongly urge you to be
the best at what you do and to test yourself against others in competitions
like Undergraduate of the Year. Ultimately this not only looks good on your CV,
but it makes you want more, it gives you a chance to talk to the best students
out there, the best employers and to build a network of friends and potential
co-workers after university. Just writing about this made me think I should
stop procrastinating writing articles about why we should try to be the best
and just start doing it.
In the end, I want to
thank Barclays for all the support and advice, I want to congratulate all the
winners and finalists this year, you guys were amazing and also a big shout out
to the only other finalist from Manchester University, for the Law
Undergraduate Award, Phillip Ebsworth.
If this post has inspired you - why not pre-register for next year's Undergraduate of the Year awards.
If this post has inspired you - why not pre-register for next year's Undergraduate of the Year awards.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave your comments and feedback here: