Allowing yourself to
to do things and get yourself out of the comfort zone
and know that it’s okay to mess up a bit, it's okay to mess up lots.
It's not the end of the world.
Usually
it'll be okay.
Just give it a go and keep going
after that.
For me, if you're going to kind of create a company or anything like that,
if you think about it, when you've finished
university, your costs are at the lowest they're ever going to be.
This is the time to go and do it.
If you're going to try and do something amazing
or invest a time in yourself, do it as soon as you finished university.
I think knowing what I know, and hindsight is a great thing,
if I know what I know now, I'll probably be a billionaire.
But I think at that point when I'd finished,
my costs were low enough that I could invest the time.
And I think that's really important if you don't really know
what you want to do at that point, start trying different technologies,
play with different frameworks, try and work out what works for you and
and then go for that area and concentrate in that area.
I think my advice kind of comes from a little bit of just like
it is the most time freedom you will ever have like
the next 20 years probably, but absolutely
take the time to make the right friends and join the right communities.
And it's like it feels stressful,
you definitely get to that hump
in the middle of the year where it's like too much work,
everything's like ending all at once. What do you do?
But if you have taken the time to join those communities and make those friends,
it's like a shared problem and they can calm you down and you can,
you know, just on your own tackling this thing.
Everybody else is doing the exact same work.
They might have already figured it out. Go have a chat with them.
And failing that chat to your lecturers because they don't want you to fail.
They want to help you. On that as well,
when you've got that group, a network, if one of you gets a job,
when the next job comes up, they're kind of like,
I know a really good developer or I need a
PM, do you know anyone that's good at kind of organising?
Yeah.
I mean, my employers recognise me from Three Thing Game and recognise me
from like being present in comp sci, and I knew some of the employees
already who were like, oh yeah, give her a go, she’s okay, bring her in.
I'd probably say just
put yourself out there
and you don't need to be the big person
that you're not, but be yourself and just try and make those connections
while you're at uni, like your friends joining societies.
Even if you don't think the society is relevant,
it doesn't have to be like comp sci could be something like gaming.
It could even be something
like music.
Just something that makes you happy.
Because at times in the year when everything starts
to get busy and a little bit overwhelming, you've got those things to fall back on.
To just unwind a bit and it's all just,
uni’s supposed to be a fun experience.
It's not supposed to be constant stress. Yeah.
It's something... We don't let it be
constant stress.
Definitely not.
Yeah.
One thing I would say is yeah, although when your main purpose is
uni here in uni, but
you taking some time out and discover yourself as a person is very important.
It's not always sticking your head in your books,
but is important to stick your head in the book, get the grades that you want but
you need to find yourself as a person.
Your skills, joining societies, being involved in different things,
forming great friendships and exploring the city as well.
It releases a lot of stress.
For example, in computer science, it releases a lot of stress.
So yeah,
go out there and don't just focus on the books.
Just explore and, find yourself.
Be open to things.
Not shutting any doors
and giving everything a try and not just
outside of the course, but definitely inside the course.
I remember in John's module last year you announced that we were like doing
team work and it's like, oh god, we're doing teamwork.
I didn't realise how important it was.
And as you were saying,
everything in industry is teamwork, you got to learn how to work in a team.
I was going to say, I think it was actually a shared, a shared
feeling that yeah.
Everyone just thought, I’ve only been programming alone in the dark.
I do not want to do it with other people.
So was going to see my code.
But just
allowing yourself to do things
and get yourself out of the comfort zone and know that it's okay to mess up a bit.
It's okay to mess up a lot.
It's not the end of the world.
Usually it'll be okay.
Just give it a go and keep going after that.
I mean, university is the time to make those mistakes, like the stakes
are relatively low.
You've got a massive team of people all doing the same thing to help you.
It's like just try and show the people see and see what comes of it.
Picking up on John's module last year like group works helps
you find what you can do in in your next career.
For example, I led the team and it was a stress but I managed to control
five people like bring people together, schedule for meetings,
assign tasks for people and it was so rewarding.
And again, the marks that we got, it was rewarding.
So it helped me develop the leadership skills in that aspect.
So yeah, in group works,
don’t be leaning on one person.
We got this group for a reason, not one person.
One thing, top tip from me is that we're recruiting all year round. All companies,
we don't just stop and we're just not looking at the end of the term.
And then we kind of go,
right now we need four students, we're always looking and we plan ahead.
We need you to plan ahead.
You mean if you want the best opportunity to get a job,
you want to be applying Christmas time.
I mean, not when you're finished.
You start thinking that far ahead.
We're already, if you're going to get a 2:2, 2:1, whatever it may be,
you already know what you’re kind of on with,
and we're already bought into the person
by the time we've actually interviewed you.
So if we offer you a role, we're going to wait.
And if you think about other people that are applying for the same job,
they might have a two or three month burn time before we can get them in
because of their notice period.
So you're actually in a good position
and I think definitely plan ahead, apply earlier.
And that was something that I didn't realise
much earlier and I wish I had done.