Category: work experience

The successes and challenges of my work placement

MEng Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Having just finished my placement, I have a lot of thoughts on what met my expectations and where I could do better during that time. As part of my Electrical and Electronic Engineering degree, I had an opportunity to do a six-month internship over the last term of my third year and the summer. Now that I’m going into my fourth and final year of study, I can fully recognise just how much it has shaped my career goals.

Let me give you a bit more context before I dive into the details. I did the placement in software engineering, so not quite in the same field as my area of study.

Part-time jobs – it’s doable!

Qinyi Wang

MEng Biomedical Engineering

Living in London is no cheap feat; your expenses will rack up very quickly when you pay for rent, travel fees, groceries, takeaways, shopping sprees, etc. We’ve all had that little adrenaline rush as we check our bank accounts at the end of each month.

On top of managing your budget, you might want to consider getting a part-time job or two to support yourself throughout the academic year. Yet, between Imperial’s workload and your society engagements, you might be hesitant about jamming yet another commitment in your already-packed schedule.

After talking to my friends and peers, I have come up with a list of part-time work that Imperial students can definitely check out!

Time to Get Creative With Work Experience

Medicine

I have gotten a lot of questions from friends and younger students at my sixth form about work experience for applying to medicine. I found it very difficult getting work experience when applying and a lot of the time I was just too awkward or nervous to take opportunities to learn. My advice is just taking initiative and reach out to people. Obviously, due to COVID-19, chances of getting work experience in clinical settings like GPs and hospitals or even care homes is slim to none. This is your opportunity to get creative.

Do you know a neighbour that needs help collecting prescription medicine?

Tutoring in a Foreign Country

Yee Tong Siow

MEng Mechanical Engineering

Since my first year in London, I have always wanted to work part time while studying. Even though my parents are able to support me through my studies here, I still desire to lessen their burden in any way I can due to the high international student fees. That notion slowly slipped my mind during first year as I started getting overwhelmed with projects and deadlines. However, after my exams during summer, a few friends and I were talking together and the topic of tutoring just popped up. From there, we managed to find a UK based website called Tutorful. This platform allows mentors to be connected with mentees based on subject and level preference.

Mini Reflections from Working Part-Time Whilst Studying

Bianca Khor

MSc Management

Part-time jobs have taken up a fair amount of time during my undergraduate years, especially during my second year.

Some of my experiences include being a cashier at Kimiko (a Japanese fast-food outlet located in the Junior Common Room of Imperial’s Sherfield Building), serving as a student ambassador under the President’s Ambassador scheme, representing the Department of Life Sciences as a student tour guide during Open Days, participating in the College’s ask-a-student scheme (called UniBuddy), as well as being a student blogger at the point of writing!

Juggling all these in addition to attending Imperial as a full-time student is definitely a mini-challenge by itself (because let’s face it, student life here can be really intense at times).

Part-time Work at Imperial: Student Caller

Kinan Wihba

Medicine

The Imperial Spring 2020 Telethon will be running for 7 weeks in February and March. I worked on the Spring 2019 Telethon. So, I decided to write about what the job entails and provide some advice for future callers!

This campaign aims to reach out to alumni to share exciting news from Imperial with them and to invite them to support the college through a range of giving opportunities. Ultimately, the telethon is not about fundraising. It is about initiating and strengthening long-term contact between Imperial and its alumni. It is also about you enjoying great conversation with alumni.

The Time Commitment:

Shifts take place on weekdays in the evening on the weekend during the day and afternoon.

Myth or reality: Reconciling part time jobs with studies

Marine Coispeau

Biotechnology

Similarly to a little bird flying away from its beloved nest, leaving home to come study in a huge city can be extremely daunting for most prospective students. Add to that the many responsibilities (for example grocery shopping, cooking, washing) of an independent life and it is easy to be terrified. However, this is something that we have all been through. Been an accommodation tour guide on the open days and post to discussions with freshers have shown me that many prospective students are concerned about finding a part time job or knowing if it is even possible to reconcile their studies with a job.

Internship Applications: Top Tips

Mathematics and Statistics

How to successfully navigate applications

One of the hardest parts of being a penultimate year student is juggling applications for internships alongside academic studies. Having just been through this process, I wanted to share my journey and also some top tips on how to survive this time-consuming task successfully! In this first post I will talk about the general process and my top tips!

The general steps in the application process
  1. Online Application – This usually involves providing your personal details, answering some questions about your motivations for this career, listing your previous work experiences. Sometimes you will be asked to provide a CV and cover letter
  2. Online Assessments – Either with your application or sometimes if you make it through the first round, you will be asked to complete some online assessments.

What is Data Spark and why you should take part

MSc Business Analytics

Data Spark is a student placement scheme at Imperial designed to uncover insights and solve real-world business problems. It lasts around 6 weeks and you’re able to work with students from different study programs. Throughout this journey, you get great advice from academic and industry mentors.

Having finalised the program last week, I wanted to share what I enjoyed the most:

Applying new skills

One of my favourite parts of this program was that I was able to apply several skills learned during my current study program (MSc Business Analytics). I was able to run different models, work on network analysis and and apply several visualisation techniques.

I think I found my Dream Job

Mathematics and Statistics

The work that wasn’t revision during the holidays

During the Easter holidays, aside from catching up with friends, going home for a few weeks, and of course revision, I had some time to do some other cool stuff in and around the college and even got paid for some of it!

Work Shadowing:

A couple of weeks before Easter break, I attended a careers talk in the maths department which was all about how to approach companies in search of jobs and internships but also advertising the services we have access to as students at Imperial, such as CV checking. One such service that was advertised was the First year work shadowing scheme.

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