Hi. I'm Phoebe.
During my last year at Bath, I had tried to think about what I would do after my degree but I found it very overwhelming and so I kept putting it off. As I was revising for my final exams of my Biochemistry undergrad course, it was increasingly in the back of my mind, and I was worrying that I had no plans. When I saw the advert for the event, I signed up immediately because it meant I could continue to focus on my revision, whilst knowing that I was going to focus on my future immediately after my exams were over.
The event itself was amazing - it covered everything I needed.
I didn’t know what sort of jobs I even wanted to apply for, and it helped me narrow that down. Despite having done a few interviews for my placement year, I had no idea if they had actually gone well. The event massively boosted my confidence in knowing what interviewers would be looking for and prepared me for a range of scenarios like group tasks. I really liked that we practised these with each other as the stakes were low, so it wasn’t nerve-wracking.
The thing I found best about the event was the environment. The team were really helpful, friendly and seemed to genuinely care about us. They did a good job at helping us break the ice and feel comfortable with each other, and because of the timing of the event, everyone participating was really engaged, not wishing they were working on another piece of work. People came with many different ideas about what they might want to do in the future, and it widened my ideas more.
The biggest thing I gained was a change in mindset. Before the event I felt like I had to find the perfect job for me and for my future career, which was overwhelming as I couldn’t decide what direction I even wanted to go in. But the event really highlighted that we didn’t need to find the perfect job and that career paths aren't linear. We could just focus on the skills we could gain from different experiences, and this took a lot of the fear out of it for me.
After the event I went on to have a really productive summer of applying for jobs, doing interviews, and broadening the types of things I was searching for. From the event, I worked out my values (I didn’t want to do any work with animals) and realised I was looking for any role that would give me more lab experience, whether it fit with the types of things I had previously studied or not. By both narrowing and broadening my search like this, I found so many things that I could do.
Despite thinking I was searching for more of a industry role, when I saw an advert for a PhD role that interested me, I didn’t have too much hesitation in applying, as I had already figured out from the event that despite my inexperience in specific fields, I had a lot of transferable skills that would make me as strong a candidate as anyone else. I found the interview for the PhD position quite fun, as I viewed it as just another chance to practise my interview skills, and then surprisingly I got offered the role and (after some thought) I had the confidence to accept it and start the next four years of my career! I am now in my second year, and although it can be challenging some days, I’m so glad I decided to do this as I am really enjoying it. I put a lot of it down to the confidence and mindset change that I gained form the Finalist Jumpstart event that I attended.
I have no idea what I will do in the future, but the skills I learnt from the event have already helped me secure a 3-month placement during my PhD (which I am really excited about!) and I am sure I will keep using these skills and mindset in the future to help me find my future roles. A massive thank you for Jo and the team for putting on this event - I encourage any Bath student to do it!
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