Journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step

Winner of the Low Carbon Undergraduate of the Year award, Declan Bryans gives his advice on how to tackle a work placement.

Not even a year has passed since I entered the Undergraduate of the Year 2012 but reflecting back on it puts into perspective just how much someone can achieve in such a short period of time.  Back then my summer was set to be another uneventful period of time, biggest plan on the cards was to go out with friends and relax while waiting for the next year of university to begin.

It turns out my summer was very different than originally planned. 13^th of April, my 21^st birthday, was the day that my summer plans had changed. It was on that day I was announced as the winner of my award category, low carbon technologies.  All of a sudden I was talking about working for EDF Energy and told I would be going down to the Olympic games for a VIP day. Both were things I never even dreamt of achieving.

In this post I hope to give some sound advice for those who are going on placement for the first time and need to move away from home. The first challenges I came across was accommodation and finances. As soon as you have your start date, I would advise that you start looking for affordable accommodation. It is likely that the company you will be working for will know of some good places so it’s worthwhile asking. Once this is sourced, it is a good idea to get to know the person you are renting a room or flat from. This serves to fulfil two purposes: firstly it settles their mind as to what type of person you are, a lot of property owners out there have made massive investments and it is always a relief to know that the stranger living in their house won’t turn out to be a psychopath and destroy their hard work. Secondly, it also means they might be able to help you out a bit. This could range from them helping you with transport arrangements to and from work, or allowing a payment to come late: it removes a lot of stress from you.

Once that is all settled, the next big thing is the work placement itself. Chances are you’ll be there for 8 to 12 weeks; a lot of companies may see this like an extended interview and could lead to a future career with them. This doesn’t mean, however, that they expect you to know everything about their field; they know you are there to learn so you should adopt a questioning attitude. It will show that you are eager to learn and willing to improve. From this, it could leave a positive impression on your employer and, down the road, it may lead to a job offer.

My time with EDF has allowed me to develop exponentially, on my CV and personally. I have learnt so much from them and have managed to become more open minded to all the different sectors and aspects required in the energy sector. Unfortunately, I can’t talk on much of what I did during my placement.

The second part of my award prize was a VIP day at the London Olympics and it did not fail to impress. I watched the Olympics on the TV almost every day but that does not compare to the experience of actually being there. The sheer size and atmosphere was outstanding and I am glad that I can say I was a part of it all. The day started early with a tour of the London Eye before a very fancy lunch. However, the main event came in the afternoon when we attended the Basketball matches. Even although Great Britain weren’t doing particularly well in this front we managed to time it well enough to see them get their only victory against China and an excellent display of skill from Nigeria and France.  

To me this has been a massively successful summer that has potentially shaped my future career. This journey has only begun for me and I plan to build upon these successes and push my boundaries even further. I will finish my blog with one final piece of advice, none of this would have happened had I not took the 5 minutes to fill in the application form back in December. It is the smallest of actions that can make the biggest of changes and from the quote above, it starts with one small step to make a legendary journey. Take that step and remember that limits and boundaries are only there to be broken.

Meet all of 2012's winners and enter the awards here. 

How I won the TARGETjobs Undergraduate of the Year in Low Carbon Technology (Part two)

Declan Bryans is back with more about his journey from TARGETjobs Low Carbon undergraduate of the year applicant to Low CarbonUndergraduate of the year winner. This week he discusses his arrival at the award ceremony having found out that he was short-listed and finally winning the award. 

Upon arrival at the award ceremony, the place was massive and the building was beautiful. After registering we were all escorted upstairs to a glorious reception which even had their own miniature orchestra playing, very suave indeed. Once I had met up with all the other finalists and EDF Energy representatives we were shown our seats for the lunch. The whole afternoon was wonderful, and an excellent way to celebrate my 21^st to boot. After a delicious lunch the point of the afternoon came where the award winners were announced and you could practically feel the mixed emotions in the air from excitement to fear. I’ll be the first to admit that doubts started crawling into my mind and the fact our award was one of the later ones to be announced the doubts kept building up.

Eventually, the moment came, the next 20 to 30 minutes felt like a couple of seconds, my name was called out as the winner, I was then up on stage accepting the award, getting pictures taken to giving a journalist a note of how I felt; the journalist was really good as she managed to translate my exasperations to legible English. The next few days after that became a blur. My university was ecstatic that I had won and I have received multiple emails congratulating me on that fact. It felt good. I was soon up on the website as one of the success stories I have read when I was in first year, feeling determined to replicate that success in the story I had just read and now I have.

I am extremely excited to be working with EDF Energy and I will continue to blog about my experiences with them throughout the summer. I have been asked to give advice or tips to anyone looking to enter this competition and I have this to say. Just do it! It’s worth a try and give it your all, if you’re not successful it’s an experience and there is always next year. Thanks for taking time to read my blog, I promise I will practise and get better for the next blogs to come!

Congratulations to all the award winners and finalists for the Undergraduate of the Year awards 2012.

If you feel that you have what it takes to be 2013's Undergraduate of the year in your sector category, why not pre-register your interest here. http://undergraduateoftheyear.com/

 

How I won the TARGETjobs Undergraduate of the Year in Low Carbon Technology

Hello today we have a special guest, Declan Bryans, this year's winner of the Undergraduate of the Year in Low Carbon Technology, sponsored by EDF energy. He kindly has given his time to write about his experience, what he did to make sure he was ahead of the competition, how he felt on the day of the award ceremony. The first part of this guest blog talks about his determination to succeed and how he rallied the troops around him to make sure that his application and interview would stand out. (Some really useful information) 

Hello everyone, my name is Declan Bryans and I am going to write this blog explaining my motivations to why I entered and how I became the Undergraduate of the Year in Low Carbon Technology, sponsored by EDF Energy. I study an MSci in Applied Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the University of Strathclyde.  I’ve never wrote a blog before in my life, so I have asked a couple of my friends how they do it.


They said; express your feelings and type it as if you’re telling someone it for the first time. Coming from the west of Scotland this seems like a bit of a daunting task but I will do my best to keep the text informative and interesting! So, here we go!

I first heard of Undergraduate of the Year competition back in December 2011, when I received an email from my department at Strathclyde University. The email stated that the deadline was fast approaching and that it may interest some students. So with exams round the corner and being submerged in notes and textbooks this seemed like the perfect form of guilt free procrastination a student could wish for!

After looking at the twelve awards, the low carbon technology award stood out to me, it was an area I was interested in, it was related to my course and I had recently done a project on renewables. Dream come true! So after filling out the personal details section adding in my CV we got to the questions specific for this award. If memory serves me right, it was how I could tackle the energy crisis and how my course relates to it, having studied this topic already, a quick catch up and I had down, what I thought was two pretty good answers.

So exams finished and wrapped up a period of time later (can’t remember how long!) I received an email from TARGETjobs congratulating me on my success for passing the first stage and that the second stage consisted of some online tests to be completed. Win! After a few online practise tests I plucked up the courage and started the tests. I found the tests to be quick paced with the difficult part knowing that you’re against the clock and then trying to remove that fact from your head to concentrate on the questions at hand.

Eventually, it was March and I had received an email congratulating me on passing the previous stage and that I would soon be contacted by the sponsors of my award, which I was. I was invited to attend their assessment centre down in London on the 23^rd of March. I was told to prepare a 5 minute presentation on a stated topic. That was when the thought occurred to me that I could win this award: I have made it this far, why not take it all the way. That was when I decided I needed to ensure I had one great presentation that would stand above the rest of the competition, as I knew that the other students through to this stage would definitely put up a good fight. So I asked for help, I met up with some lecturers in my university who specialise in this area and we threw ideas off each other. Armed with a plan I dedicated a night to prepare my slides and the dialogue to go with it. It didn’t stop there however, I took it to my Study of Advisors and another lecturer who has helped with our presentation skills in the past, asked their advice and refined my overall presentation. Once this was done I practised, practised myself, practised in front of friends and family, even practised on the train down to London.

Eventually, I was there (after a 5 hour train journey). Not being a regular visitor to London I have to admit I got lost a couple of times but through trial and error I made it to the right building: and on time too!  I met the other students who were competing for the award and they were great people with impressive backgrounds, one guy had a personalised tie of one of his achievements. The day consisted of two team work tasks and the presentation, so I decided to give it my all that day and enjoy myself (and being honest, it was a lot of fun!).

Ten days went by and I must admit; it was looking bleak. I was expecting the “there were many great applicants but unfortunately” story. Just imagine my surprise when I received the email stating I was a finalist and invited to the award ceremony on Friday the 13^th of April: bad day for some but good omen for me considering it was also my 21^st Birthday!

Stay tuned.. next week Declan will be back to talk about the award ceremony, his nerve-wrecking experience and the joys of finding out that he was the winner! 

And... if you think you have what it takes to be next year's Undergraduate of the year why not pre-register to be the first to know when the awards are open. http://undergraduateoftheyear.com/