Education followed by E-word

4:17pm Thursday 15th May 2008

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"EDUCATION, education, education" was how Tony Blair set out his priorities for office in 1997.

I wonder if 11 years on, it would be more suitable for Gordon Brown to opt for "work experience, work experience, work experience".

Being a third year student with less than a week to go of blissful, stress-free living, that daunting prospect of getting a job has arisen and it seems that the degree I've worked for only brings me one small step towards actually getting employed.

And that's because most employers want work experience.

This daunting subject even has its own section in application forms.

As if stating hobbies and interests (asides from socialising and swimming) wasn't difficult enough - filling in the work experience sections can be a scary task.

We can no longer put our high school positions of being head girl or sports captain as being proof that we're hardworking and responsible.

We need much more.

But many universities understand this and with Hertfordshire in particular, we're bombarded with opportunities from the word go to fill up our CVs.

For example, we can become a student ambassador, where we help out at university open days, we can mentor children in local schools or we can have placements on magazines and newspapers.

And the bonuses with these are, most of them are paid which helps to keep both a healthy CV and a bank balance.

But then work experience isn't always ideal.

I've been quite lucky in that the work experience I've had has been worth its weight in gold.

But, on my first day at my local newspaper, I was warned by a journalist to keep a diary of how many hours I was asked to work, how many stories I had written and then confront the editor if things got out of hand.

Luckily, I wasn't asked to make cups of tea or made to feel like a slave so I never had to say anything but I've known of some people to have horror placements.

When I worked at a magazine in London, one girl I met had been working there fore six months - unpaid.

To calm the shocked look on my face, she pulled me up on the fact that she wasn't just a "work experience girl".

Instead, she corrected me that she was in fact on an internship. But as we did vox pops and tidied the fashion cupboard together, it must have been clear to her that she was being taken for a ride.

Bosses seemed to have clicked onto the fact that students are desperate for work experience and will do anything for it.

In the past, I've spent £140 on train fares to have some work experience at another magazine in London but this flew out of my mind when I got a bag of hair and make up goodies and published work at the end of it.

But instead a bottle of expensive perfume to sweeten the experience, bosses have come up with alternate ways of making unpaid work experience sound more appealing.

For example, we can go on summer internships, trainee schemes, university placements and better still, put graduate anywhere in the title and students will come flocking.

It's easy to see why work experience isn't always an attractive bonus for students.

But it's something that is necessary.

However, my friend gave me some interesting advice.

According to her, the best way to make it in life is not through work experience or what degree you get, it's all about who you know.

She recommends hanging out in London bars at about 6pm and you're bound to meet someone that can get you a foot in the door. But asides from getting work experience, there's another worry about being a post graduate, and that's what type of degree you get.

And it's not just a worry about failing.

Although no teacher would ever admit it there's truth in it, I've been told on several occasions to not go for a first class degree because it makes you look like you haven't got a social life or any social skills.

I actually have a friend who used the line "I'm very sociable which is why I got a 2:2"- and she got the job.

So with these confounding issues, university, although enjoyably gets a bit stressful in year three.

But despite these questions that university raises, it's the done thing to do.

You leave school, get your GCSEs, got to college, get you're a levels and then it's off to university.

And before you know it, five years have passed and you're still trying to put of that dreaded E word - employment.

It's a scary prospect.

For the past six years, all I've had to worry about is getting my coursework done on time and reading through lecture notes for an exam.

I don't have to pay council tax or prescriptions and I haven't had to set my alarm clock for about two months.

It hardly sets me up for the 9-5.

But I take comfort in the thought that no matter what degree I've got or what work experience I've had, like every other student in England, I can change my career path at any time.

After all, Ali G did do a history degree at Cambridge.

Sarah Harvey is a journalism student at the University of Hertfordshire