Uni has taught me ...

I'm currently in my fourth week of my placement at The Grey Man and I just feel like everything is coming into place. Just to fill you in however, I spent my first three weeks stressing about whether I knew enough or if I was doing everything right or if I was allowed to do certain things -pretty much everything! I didn't have confidence in myself or my ability and I was just worrying over every little detail. But now, because of a few things, I am more confident in myself and have discovered that I have actually learnt quite a bit from university.

Communication Skills - The Grey Man are looking to design a merchandise range and my first job was to find some quotes for products and to try and get the best price possible because they are a not-for-profit organisation. The first few phone calls I made, I remember being absolutely terrified! I thought to myself - 'they're going to think that I'm some random student who has no idea what she's talking about and I'll probably just end up embarrassing myself!' I remember having to write down exactly what I was going to say and practice it over and over again in my head before I gained the courage to even pick up the phone. However, after a few terrifying calls, I realised that it really wasn't that scary and that I did know what I was talking about. I found that being professional and confident was all that was needed and I knew how to do this through all the communication activities we did at university - speeches, group work, meeting new people, presentations etc.

Professionalism - I was also told that my emails that I sent were also quite professional and it wasn't even any effort to type them up because I had sent so many off before for university.

So I after four weeks experiencing the 'real world', I have learnt that I have picked up a few things from university and that I should be confident in my skills and abilities. I think that we have all learnt so much from being at university - not just theory but basic skills such as communicating to people we don't know, talking to an audience, writing professional emails etc. We should use that to our advantage and be confident in ourselves because we haven't studied for 3+ years for nothing!

Anyway, I hope that you are all still enjoying your placements and making the most of them.

Amy Cheang (13948287)

Bentley Campus