What can I do with my degree University of Manchester Careers Blog

What can I do with my degree Off you go to University full of excitement and dreams for the future. But have you really considered what you will do with the degree you chose? You might expect that if you are doing a vocational course like engineering, law or medicine, your career decisions would be easy, and that options with lets say a geography or history degree would be less obvious? To be honest whatever degree you do the options afterwards are always up to you. Many jobs require any degree, but want some relevant skills that you can gain in any number of ways. There are some jobs you can only do with a particular degree. Often there are options to retrain though, via Postgraduate study e.g. Law, teaching. There are some qualifications you can only do with certain A levels so a history student with the right A levels can retrain to become a doctor. There are some jobs that require specific experience. Ideally we would all start University knowing exactly what we wanted to do and ready to acquire all the relevant skills. Lifes not like that so what can you do? If you dont have any ideas right now thats fine.  Use your time to explore options and work out what you like. Join clubs societies or get involved in activities you think you would enjoy. Volunteer do something you have not tried before. Get a part time and or vacation job or internship.  Just try something out and see what its like. Why bother?  Youll soon realise you like some things and not others. Consider what you want to do more or less of in future, it is a useful first step in itself, plus you will have built up a great bank of experience and skills. You think you have some ideas about what you want to do after university. Great lets test them out. Investigate the job roles you might like and see if there are specific requirements in terms of qualifications or experience skills.  Now you have a shopping list! Seek out opportunities to find out if these jobs are really for you. Get work experience, work shadowing, a mentor, attend employer talks networking sessions. Get the skills experience needed for the job.  Is a formal internship normally the way in, do you need to get voluntary experience or develop a portfolio of work first? People often flit between knowing what they want and then becoming unsure or changing track. Thats normal, its part of trying to understanding what you want and checking your facts. If you need someone to bounce ideas off come and see us. All Careers advice I don't know what to do Undergraduate Undergraduate-highlighted career planning careers work experience