Now that I\u2019ve finished my year abroad, I have absolutely no idea what I would like to do career wise (I know\u2026 not the best start to a blog). At the moment I know that I\u2019m definitely going to finish my last year of University at Aberystwyth and hopefully after that I would like to do a Master\u2019s in either linguistics or modern languages. However once this period of study is over, I\u2019m clueless as to what I would like to do, I thought I would like to teach, however I realised I\u2019m probably better suited to studying rather than teaching! For a while now, I\u2019ve been toying with the idea of going into the civil service, most specifically, the diplomatic core. However even though I\u2019m not set on a career yet, I know a couple of things for sure. I know that whatever I\u2019m doing I want to be happy, I want to be surrounded by friends and family, I want to have travelled and most importantly I want to be experiencing life to the fullest. I think nowadays there is so much pressure on the younger generation to decide NOW what they want to do for the rest of their lives. When I first applied to study at Aberystwyth I originally started off studying International Politics and Spanish, however I quickly realised it wasn\u2019t for me and switched to English Literature and Spanish. This is an example of how sometimes the subject we think we\u2019re going to be interested in, isn\u2019t always the right choice but luckily I was able to change degrees and am now studying something I really enjoy.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also important to realise that University isn\u2019t for everyone and if you decide to do something else, it isn\u2019t the end of the world. There are so many other opportunities and routes you could go down, you could volunteer, travel, work in an internship or as an apprentice or just go directly into a job. What matters is that you always remain ambitious and know at the back of your mind that only you can succeed, no one else can do it for you. I always like to be in competition with myself, if I know I can do it then I will stop at nothing to achieve it and even if I don\u2019t achieve it the first time then I just try and try again until I succeed. It\u2019s definitely a scary prospect, trying to decide what I would like to do as a job for the rest of my life, especially as there are so many things I\u2019m interested in that I want to do a bit of everything. I would love to open my own caf\u00e9 one day or a B&B, I would love to travel the world with my friends, I would love to work in the civil service or even do another degree, maybe in nutrition or archaeology. The list is ENDLESS. This is why, for me, it\u2019s so hard to decide on just one thing or one career path because at the end of the day there are just too many interests to narrow it down to just one or two. I\u2019m sure that I will eventually decide but for now I\u2019m happy to just get the best degree I can, succeed in my masters and then my main goal is to be happy doing whatever it is I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n
So far university has been an amazing experience for me. I\u2019ve met some great friends from loads of different countries, travelled around Europe and learnt so much academically and personally. I think this is what being at university is all about. It\u00b4s definitely about achieving the best degree you possibly can, but most importantly it\u2019s also about the experience. You need to be happy in the town or city you\u2019ve chosen, be surrounded by people who are going to inspire you with great friendship, keep you grounded and even though there will be times when you don\u2019t necessarily like a certain module, in the end it\u2019s definitely true when they say that your time at university will be some of the best years of your life. I have without a doubt enjoyed my year abroad in Spain \u2013 the warmer weather and sunshine definitely helped! However it wasn\u2019t just the good weather which made it an unforgettable year, it was also the skills I learned whilst working as a SEN support learner (Special Educational Needs). Some of these skills are obviously an increased awareness of educational disabilities but others are some I wouldn\u2019t necessarily have thought about, such as how important it is to be organized in the mornings, also the responsibility that comes along with a job where people are relying on you to turn up on time and perform to the highest standard you possibly can. I think this year abroad has definitely taught me how to be professional, how to handle different types of co-workers and also that you should always try and be enthusiastic for the student\u2019s whilst teaching, even if you don\u2019t always feel like it. Hopefully this new sense of responsibility will carry over to my last year at university and will keep me driven and organised, which I definitely need to be in order to do well and settle back into a more academic work ethic; plus it\u00b4s also a great bonus to be able to have a year\u2019s worth of work experience on my CV once I\u2019ve graduated. All in all, knowing another language has opened a lot of doors for me (sorry for the cheesy clich\u00e9d metaphor!) Don\u2019t forget that even if something doesn\u2019t work out the first, second or even third time, you will find what you\u2019re meant to do in life, even if it isn\u2019t necessarily what you thought your original path would be. Like I said before, university isn\u2019t for everyone but I strongly believe that knowing languages is the tool that everyone needs.<\/p>\n
\u00a1Buen viaje!<\/p>\n
Follow me on Instagram: @em_djones<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now that I\u2019ve finished my year abroad, I have absolutely no idea what I would like to do career wise (I know\u2026 not the best start to a blog). At the moment I know that I\u2019m definitely going to finish my last year of University at Aberystwyth and hopefully after that I would like to… Continue reading Routes Lingomap: My plans after graduation…<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13066,"featured_media":1050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,5],"tags":[33,45,46,59,82,85,91,102,109,117,121,122],"class_list":["post-1046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-office-aberystwyth-university","category-lifestyle","category-outgoing-students-2015-2016","tag-erasmus","tag-goals","tag-graduation","tag-life-plan","tag-sand","tag-sea","tag-spain","tag-sun","tag-travel","tag-university","tag-what-am-i-going-to-do-after-graduation","tag-year-abroad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/files\/2017\/06\/sea.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13066"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1218,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046\/revisions\/1218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/aberexchanges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}