Where Do I Find Work Experience? See below…

You won’t need me to tell you that work experience is so important for any graduate looking for a professional job, however, a question I am always asked is, which companies are likely to offer experience? It seems my time fielding these questions could have been saved if these proactive students had checked out the shortlist for the annual National Council for Work Experience awards.

Each company’s scheme is assessed on how much of the employer’s time and effort is put into helping students and graduates develop employability skills. The John Lewis Partnership and BP have been stand out firms, picking up nominations in more than one of the 13 available categories. Teach First was nominated in the best newcomer category, for schemes that have been set up in the last two years.

The best large firms offering long-term placements were judged, Fujitsu, GlaxoSmithKline, IBM, Intel John Lewis Partnership and Vauxhall Motors

Firms which offered the best short-term placement (up to three months in length) were, BP, Centrica, Emerald Group Publishing, Hymans Robertson, Infosys and Motability Operations.

So when stumped at whom to approach to gain some of that all important work experience, use these companies as a starting point. They will all look fantastic on your CV!

Boris Bikes, Good? Bad? Ugly?

Since their introduction to London in July 2010, has this nifty bicycle-sharing scheme helped burn weekend calories, helped remove some of our capital’s infamous congestion and offered graduates a viable and cheap way of commuting?

A Boris Bike’s real name is actually Barclays Cycle Hire; I bet you didn’t know that! The system works by having a number of docking stations dotted in and around London, to which people can rent and return bikes, free for the first 30mins, then you pay more the longer you keep the bike.

With Britain’s fabulous performance during the Olympics, cycling has certainly gaining popularity. In fact the Olympics saw the record for the number of Boris Bikes hired; 47,105 hires in one day, which may have been the cherry on the cake and confirmed that the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme was fantastic.

However, although it may feel like the start line for the Olympics triathlon at traffic lights across the City, as bikes, motorized and human powered, expensive and rusty, jostle for position, the Olympics have actually finished and the prices for bike rental have increased.

So on a rainy Tuesday morning, do people actually want to commute using these bikes? Its design is not the most sophisticated but at least that means no one would steal one. You do see plenty of people on Boris Bikes, but you see more tourists than suits making their complete journey to work, especially in the morning. Plus, it is a real pain if you arrive at a docking station and there is nowhere to dock your bike, you have to traipse to the next docking station. It can add uncertainty to your commute. Plus riding bikes make you sweat, which can play havoc with your new Super 100 Merino wool suit.

They do prove a handy and cheap way to travel a few blocks to a meeting, when there are no cabs and the walk to a tube doesn’t make sense. They are cheap, many people wouldn’t ride for longer than 30mins and therefore their journey is free, something which rarely happens in London! They are also handy if you trek into town on an overground train and just need to travel a few minutes to your office. Moreover, there is no doubt that cycling burns calories, poke your head around the door of your local Fitness First and you will see lines of bikes with people, who take the tube, pedaling frantically trying to burn off the weekend indulgences.

Nevertheless, on balance I don’t think Boris Bikes really kill two birds with one stone. Instead they make a decent stab at wounding both birds, but I doubt if either would die. In short there are better ways to exercise and more straightforward ways to commute.

Who wants to cycle in this weather?

Boris Bikes are perfect for those odd journeys you need to make whether at work, or visiting London. They let you see more of what is a very pretty city, something the tube doesn’t allow, whilst it is undeniably good exercise. There are a good addition to London's public transport, however, overall I don’t think many graduates will be using these bikes to make their daily commute!

Who cares about Maths? How Pound Shops help make you stupid...

As we have seen in the previous post, according to the government it has never been a better to get into teaching maths. I completely agree, simply because I see maths as arguably one of the most useful subjects in life, even if a certain leading Education Research Fellow at the Policy Exchange doesn’t agree. He and supposedly 55% of the public think there should be a greater emphasis on vocational and practical subjects in the educational system.

However, are they correct? Does the traditional academic subjects still have their value? Consider this situation; when this highly intelligent Education Research Fellow catches a suspicious looking pound shop retail assistant short changing him, he should thank his school for forcing him to learn maths, otherwise he’d be oblivious to this blatant con. Whilst he should not be surprised by this gaff as the poor chap probably didn’t learn maths. Unfortunately, his comprehensive knowledge of Welding Studies or Textile Design hasn’t helped him here.

I would say who cares about losing some pennies or pounds here and there, your sofa probably hides more change than this dim witted cashier unwittingly seized. Yet shops should return the correct change, no matter if you are buying a penny sweet or a Penny Black. Moreover, if shopping in a pound shop, you are probably trying to budget. But this attempt at frugality is destroyed if you get the wrong change.

This Education Research Fellow might think that suffering the budget surroundings might actually save him a few pounds, a claim which Channel 4’s Dispatches seemed to have dispelled. Whether or not their claim that pound shops aren’t actually that cheap is true, what is more significant is how these shops are affecting your mathematically ability. Ok you may save a few pounds, but is every visit essentially making you more stupid?

As long as someone can count, most could guess their bill as everything is obviously £1. However, what happens when they leave the store and are faced with decimals? Those awful things, with an annoying full stop stuck in the middle of them. With the ubiquity of the loose-change generating 99p items found in most other shops on the high street, or these days in out of town shopping centres as the high streets have supposedly died, what happens to these pound shop aficionados when mental arithmetic is required? They didn’t study maths, so short of whipping out a calculator in the vegetable isle, they may be stumped and just put there chosen items on the counter, hoping the total price in within their budget.

So if this leading academic does venture into one of these bargain busting hotspots and hopes to save a few pounds, the lack of mathematical dexterously will have backfired. If the poor retail assistant was forced to learn maths, instead of Pastry Studies, he might have given the correct change. Better still, he may have managed to get a more challenging and enjoyable job.

This poor guy is obviously one of the 552,575 pupils who were thought to have taken at least one of the so-called Mickey Mouse subjects in 2011. What is concerning is that the number of pupils taking the typical academic subjects - maths, a science, English, languages, history and geography, has halved under Labour to barely one in six. So looking to the future, check your change if living on a budget, whilst more importantly, be grateful you learnt maths!