It’s coming to the end of semester 1. Everyone’s minds are on Christmas and upcoming essays, but now is an excellent time to start thinking about what skills you can learn and develop.
If you’re in a sport or society, you’ll probably have a Christmas meal coming up. You might be in charge of handing out certificates for silly awards, or writing a speech to say thank you to the Presidents and helpers of your society. Though you may not be thinking about it, these are public speaking and presentation skills.
Maybe you’ve planned the Christmas meal, as well as buying presents for your family and friends, and keeping onto of work and doing the necessary eating, sleeping and relaxing. Well, those are time management skills.
Recognising what you can already do is a great way to start building on these skills. If you found writing and performing the Christmas speech hilarious, but find giving a presentation in front of your course peers terrifying, then think about what made the Christmas speech so fun. If you love cracking jokes or adding humour, then try and incorporate it into your university presentations. Of course, the humour will have to be toned down if it is an assessment, but there’s no problem adding one or two jokes if it calms your nerves!
If you love public speaking and making people laugh, then maybe sign up to an Open Mic night. There you’ll be able to test out your skills in front of strangers and be able to learn and develop. Plus, extracurricular activities such as these will look great on your CV as presentation and public speaking skills are highly sort after skills for graduate jobs.
If you aren’t apart of any sports or societies and now you’re panicking because you think you don’t have any skills, have no fear! The Christmas period is a great time to start preparing yourself for your future. You could always think about getting a seasonal job, where you help out at a retailer over the Christmas period. The benefits of these jobs can be found here.
If you have free time over the Christmas period, you can always start searching for what kinds of jobs you’d like to apply for in the future. If your dream job needs you to have three weeks of volunteering in a children’s nursery, then now is the perfect time to start planning that. If you leave it too late, then you’ll only add more stress to yourself when the next semester starts!
Maybe you have extremely poor time management skills. Maybe you’ve read this post and suddenly everything you haven’t done is dawning on you: buying presents, essays, booking that train home, work, socialising, eating etc. etc. Well, when you’re sat at home on the sofa eating mince pies, you could start planning your work for next semester. Getting a head start on the reading list, starting to research the essay titles, making a timetable for when you’re going to study, even putting essay deadlines and exam dates in your diary will help you along the way to becoming a bit more prepared.
Christmas is obviously a wonderful time. Spending time with friends and family, opening presents and eating all the wonderful food your mum has made is certainly joyous. But make sure you don’t waste precious time. You certainly don’t want to start semester 2 stressed!
Charlotte Brindley | Careers Ambassador | YSJ