Finding opportunity with Access Aspiration

As part of our commitment to shining a light on the issues that matter most to young people, we reached out to our Student Ambassadors to talk about their thoughts, feelings and concerns for the future. In this blog, Nawal shares their advice for students signing up to the programme.

As the end of Year 12 looms ever closer, I’m realising that the year is whizzing by and soon enough we will find ourselves enjoying the sun (hopefully!).

Year 12 is definitely an interesting year – you make new friends and really develop as a person. In your penultimate year of sixth form, one of the best things you can be doing is building up your work experience and exploring your interests. Even if you aren’t certain on the career path you want to do, make sure you explore your interests; you don’t have to know what you want to do now and most importantly, the choices you make aren’t be all or end all!

My advice is to make the most of Access Aspiration webinars and Sector Snapshots and to spend time reflecting after each session. It is beneficial to make a list of all the work experience and talks you’ve attended, especially writing down what you have learnt from it. Universities do not want to see a list of things you have done; they want to know what you have learnt and taken away from the experience!

There are lots of different webinars and snapshots on the more well known careers, and some that people don’t really know about; be open minded and attend different sessions so that you have a broader understanding of all the options available to you.

My advice for the new Year 12s is:

• Make the most of your summer – if you have a little bit of spare time, try to get some pre-reading done and build a foundation for when you start school – this is immensely helpful and the few people that did do it really hit the
  ground running.
• Be organised – invest in a planner or download an app (like Adapt) that allows you to jot down important dates for tests. This will allow you to schedule homework, work experience and free time.
• Don’t be afraid of failure – learn to accept it. It’s difficult when you get a bad grade but remember: use it as a lesson, what can you learn from it? Experiment with different learning styles – we don’t all learn the same!
• Motivation comes with consistency – I think this is really important. Procrastination is a huge problem and getting distracted easily is normal. If you decide to wait for motivation, you will be waiting a long time! To overcome this, we need to first understand why we procrastinate and usually, the root of the problem is that we are afraid of trying and still not doing well. Remember that we get one yes for every ten nos and that a ‘no’ now is not a ‘no’ forever.
• Use your teachers and the resources they give you – don’t just file the papers away, try to make notes a few hours after class summarising what you have learnt and then revisit.

Good luck!

Click here to meet your Access Aspiration Student Ambassadors.