If you were in your 2nd year of a humanities degree - what would you be doing now to

[TheLibrocubicularist]

Secure a job upon graduation. Especially if you didn't have a career in mind. What skills would you be acquiring that would make you more employable.

Sleeping

Year 3 in a placement in a job, paid work &/or volunteering relevant to field of study.

I had a gap year when I finished my degree and tried a couple of different things (had a temp civil service role and worked at a law firm before deciding I preferred the latter). I didn’t do anything while I was a student as I wasn’t switched on about that sort of thing and too busy with student life. However if I went back I’d be trying to do the work placements in the holidays as it would have given me a head start.

I would be getting work experience in the sector I wanted to go into. But if you dont know that makes it harder.

Driving license, IT skills like excel..Humanities courses don't require it of course generally but a huge number of work places will, volunteering, lifeguarding...anything to show variety, responsibility, committment. Once they do know what they might want to do, they can refine more.

Telling my mum to leave me alone

Thanks. Good idea to work on IT skills. She doesn't know what she wants to do and a visit to the Careers Advisor didn't prove fruitful.

She's had a part time job since she was 16 in hospitality. Are there well paid careers in that industry? She's got a great work ethic and is good with people.

Go to the uni career dept and ask about summer internships. I teach 3rd years and the savvy (and privileged) ones did placements over the summer between years 2-3 and got offered jobs off the back of them so have a relatively stress free third year.

The naive ones think they can start looking for jobs once their third year exams are done, not realizing that this puts them in a pool competing with 2nd years.

I did a humanities degree and ended up working in financial services. But I didn't know that at the time and you don't know what you want to do so I'd just ensure to have a job along with uni work and do some volunteering

Just getting work experience really. Unpaid internships, even just a week or two in an industry they are vaguely interested in.

I did loads of different work experience placements from the age of 15 onwards and it really helped me to decide on a career by the time I graduated. You have to try different stuff to know if you're going to like it and to demonstrate prior interest.

I would become an ecologist. The demand for them has increased hugely due to recently bought in legislation which requires all new development sites to achieve biodiversity net gain.

Trust me she’ll be rich 😂

She doesn't need to work in hospitality upon graduation, she just needs experience of work and showing commitment to what they do!

I know. I was just curious about well paid careers in hospitality.

What subject(s) is the degree in?

You can earn good money in hospitality if you join a big pub company and work your way up to pub manager, however it's a business that takes its pound of flesh to be sure...

I'd prioritise study and throwing myself into the degree - that's the one thing you can't do after you've graduated. Beyond that, make use of the university's resources - careers service, societies, volunteering opportunities, extra short courses etc - try loads of things while she has access to it all.

History. She enjoys studying. And socialising 🙂

My Mum persuaded me to think more vocationally and I applied for MA courses in my broad area of career interest (connected to my hobby rather than my academic subject). Otherwise I would have done MA in that subject and wasted a year or more thinking I wanted to keep studying - and actually I went straight into my first job before even finishing my MA dissertation.

Secure a good placement or internship.
Join relevant clubs and societies, and get elected to one of their positions (e.g. Events Coordinator of the Dungeons and Dragons Society, Chair of French Club etc.). It’s always good to join Enactus and take part in one of their initiatives. The degree is only one part of a university journey. I’d want to see a rich contribution outside studies.
If the uni offers competitions join them - e.g. hackathons. Get her to think about what she wants her career to be and start thinking about what placements and dissertation topics might be relevant. Unless she wants to work in hospitality I’d get her to change jobs to something more relevant.

Switching to a law degree

Use the uni career services. Even if she isn’t sure what she wants to do, they will have more generic support on skills and potentially sessions meeting employers to get a better sense of different jobs.

Getting someone paid work experience in holidays, weekends

Anything to add to your CV

So you have stuff to discuss at interviews that's not education based

Dropping out and restarting a vocational degree (which is exactly what I did)

I thought there were too many law graduates for traineeships? I used to work in a pub with a law grad who couldn't find relevant work

Op, if it were me I'd get a job as a TA in a secondary school, but I already work in a secondary school and like it! It may not be for her. Other things I know history grads to have found careers in are working at Westminster (both Cambridge modern history grads). One in cabinet office (she hated it) and another in Hansard (he loves it and is still there). One also worked at the British library and enjoyed that too.