Work Experience: That Was Fun?!
Work experience, we've all been there, with the majority of us young adults dreading that week where we have to work.
The teachers in our schools bang on about how this will give us a taste of the ‘real world’. Months before we actually have to head out to work experience we students sit there listening to the endless number of lectures and PowerPoint presentations, as the teachers natter on and on about why it is vital for us to attend that week. I understand the importance of all this. Although you can never miss the slight hint of patronisation in their voices, speaking as if the ‘work experience’ is some treacherous other dimension but since I already work, I hadn’t been put off by it.
Before going into your work experience, you have that thought in your head of what you’ll be doing. A lot of people tell me “Oh work experience is a breeze, you’ll probably just be making people’s teas and coffees, photocopying or printing,” so with that picture in my mind, if I’m being honest, I wasn’t looking forward to being stuck with a week of boring jobs.
Compared to the tales of the usual tea or coffee making work experiences, mine was the opposite. Now being perfectly honest, I wasn’t exactly sure what ProMo-Cymru was. I had heard from a friend before about their sites TheSprout and CLIC but hadn’t seen them yet but I was open to find out.
The first day when I turned up, I have to admit I was a tad nervous. From all the lectures by the teachers, I gathered that work experience would be made up of many colleagues in very proper black attire, sitting behind desks all incredibly formal, all strict and pretty much no fun.
However being at ProMo was fun, the people there were outgoing, super friendly and all around very lovely people. I should’ve have known to begin with though, if your work experience tweets you to ask if you’re still attending it, then they’re pretty much cool in my books. During the week I didn’t get stuck with a load of photocopying or coffee runs, instead I had been writing articles, researching and spending each day with the editors and sub-editors learning how TheSprout and CLIConline are put together. I felt very welcomed by them all, it was very chilled and a good week. I found it really helpful, giving me a taste of what I might want to do in the future; work experience is actually really useful.
So to all you lovely people who have still yet to attend work experience, keep an open mind and don’t think “Oh it’s going to be boring week to waste”. When you get closer to it, look up and research about where you’ll be going, what you might be doing and so on. Be prepared and enjoy it…
See this is just proof that not all work experiences are strict, formal people with endless coffee runs and overworking of the photocopier. But if they are then just think it'll be over in a week.
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