Yes says Scott Bryan
I do Politics. Why? It’s knickers. What’s the point learning about some tin miners’ voting rights in the 1940s? How is that going to make you more employable? I chose the subject at York because… well I have no idea. I turned up with no idea what I wanted to do, and to be frank with, what ‘I’ was about. If I had hidden away in a room reading about piffle for the last three years I wouldn’t be in any better position now than where I was then. All I have is the extra-curricular activities to thank.
The activities that you can get involved with are fantastic when you come to think about it. You can do it for a thrill. Or it’s possible to have the ‘big elite hat’ on, aim for the top of a society only to realise that you have gained no prestige and responsibility at all. Still instead of lying around watching films from Blockbuster, you can go on a social when you really shouldn’t, making an entrance back at home by falling over.
This is the stuff you remember, the stuff that makes life memorable. The stuff you read about in textbooks simply isn’t. Okay you don’t necessarily become more employable in something that can be written down, but you learn about people, about organising things with the belief that people will actually care, and most importantly you learn from the mistakes that you make along the way. These are skills that you never lose, so it must mean something.
And the best lesson I have learnt after three years at University? I have now decided that working within a highly structured environment in an office in Ipswich is not necessarily the way forward.
I’ve hyperventilated with energy in a radio studio, I’ve written a television review for Scene off-my-face during a night out. Ultimately I’ve been lucky to be in contact with some of the things that I want to keep doing for the rest of my life. Yes it will be hard. Yes the media is a competitive industry consisting of relatives who have all hired each other in the past, yes the future of media is going to be a man in a little room pulling levers up and down, and yes, I will be living with my parents down in Dorset for a very long time. But by being involved with the things that I have done here I now have target that I can work for. This is what I’ve learnt; now that I have some ambition because of this extra-curricular stuff, is simply priceless.
No says Chris Burgess
When I came to York almost three years ago, I didn’t worry about getting involved in much. I didn’t worry about a career, because that was Future-Chris’ problem. Now, at the end of my degree, this has caught up with me. Luckily, since first year, I’ve got involved in a lot more. Surely I now have a terrific bank of skills and qualities garnered from my strong list of extra-curricular activities to present to employers? Well, no, not really.
I used to write for Vision, a bit. I flatter myself that people enjoyed my columns. Looking back, however, many of the subjects I wrote about, whilst entertaining, are pretty forgettable. Anyone remember that one about the scouts with guns? Or the York pillow-fight flash mob? Even the ideas seem ludicrous now. Presenting such work seriously to employers is going to require a lot of convincing. Sure, I laid up this very section a few times, but what is that going to mean to someone (like you, presumably) who has never heard of Adobe InDesign?
A friend of mine had an idea for a magazine last year. I went along with this, and now you can read a new issue of the Lemon Press every term. The magazine was recently shortlisted for Best Media at the NUS Awards. Prestigious, eh? But how many potential employers will be aware of the awards? Many students don’t even know about them. I can, of course, explain that even being mentioned in the same sentence as the respectable, well-established newspapers like Cambridge Varsity is a big deal. But if I don’t tick specific boxes at an interview this means nothing.
Sports are good for this, I gather. I did ski a bit, back when it was YUSSC not YUsnow. But that was mainly about the après-ski, really. Plus, the only teamwork involved in my ski trip was being able to follow a group of people out of the way of the drunken skiers carrying burning torches down the darkened slope after a late night mountain-top meal.
How useful my extra-curricular activities have been to me can be summed up quite succinctly. As I sit here writing this, a friend of mine is at a job interview. He has never been part of a society. He has never been involved in anything particularly organised, unless trips to Gallery count. As a management student, with his honed vocational skills, he is simply better placed to get a job than I am. So don’t get involved people, it’s just not worth it. Study management instead.