Hello there! I’m Rebecca and I’m a recent graduate from York St John University.

I finished studying English Language and Linguistics in May and I miss it so much already. I loved my course as well as my whole student experience! However, I haven’t quite parted with York St John just yet, I am currently working for the University as a graduate intern in International Recruitment and Marketing and am really enjoying my role.

So just a brief bit of background info about me. For my A levels, I studied English Language, English Literature, and Psychology (think you can tell I really enjoyed English). When it came to choosing a subject, I was torn between studying Psychology or doing joint honours with English Language and Literature. Although I enjoyed Psychology, I only found a small portion of it really interesting and the rest just wasn’t for me so I eliminated it as I knew I’d disengage with modules that focused on aspects I didn’t enjoy. In the end, I chose to just study English Language and Linguistics as I enjoyed all aspects of the course and when I was looking at what universities offered for the course, I found the module options really interesting.

My main piece of advice for choosing a course at university has to be to pick something you enjoy or find interesting as you will be studying it for 3 years!

At university, you have the choice to choose modules on your course that you enjoy or are wanting to learn more about. This was one of my favourite aspects of my course as I chose modules I enjoyed which made my studies more interesting. As I had no idea what career route to go down after uni, I chose modules that were quite varied, so I had experience in each area, I’m glad I did this as it helped me decide what I enjoyed and what I didn’t! We also had the opportunity to do some work experience in our second year, again I chose 3 placements that were completely different just so I could gain experience in different jobs and reflect on what I preferred!

I loved doing an independent research project in my third year otherwise known as the "dreaded dissertation", but I really enjoyed it! You are able to choose whatever it is you’re interested in, collect your own data, and write about it so it is really flexible and you can tailor it to a particular career interest or just something you enjoy.

Many people will say you should go to university just because of a job, but I think even if you’re not sure about job ideas, university is still a place for you.

It is a great building block for later life as it teaches you so many things that you can’t learn elsewhere. It also provides you with so many extracurricular opportunities to engage in either academically or socially.  I have now finished university and still have no idea what I want to do as my career, but I have gained so many experiences and opportunities that I know what I can rule out or what I might be interested in pursuing. On my course, I engaged in every extracurricular opportunity I could such as paid transcription work, volunteering, and attending PhD conferences just so I could gain experience and apply the skills I had learned in lectures. I would really recommend engaging in extracurricular opportunities involving your course as it equips you with so many new skills and boosts your employability!

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