Your last summer as a student - make it count!

What you do over the last summer holiday before your final year of university can make a world of difference to how well (or not) that year goes AND what happens afterwards in terms of graduate employment or further study. Ensure you optimize how you’re spending your time during this summer break. Here are four things you can do.

(1) Non-academic learning

Learn about something that isn’t related to your course, which takes you outside of the subject you’re studying for your degree. What are you curious about or interested in? Learning a new language? Mandarin, Greek, Danish, Spanish, Italian? Do you want to start a new sport or activity? Do you want to learn about nutrition? Do you want to learn how to make videos? How to set up your own YouTube channel? How to create great content for Instagram or TikTok?

Whatever you’re interested in, there are plenty of free or low-cost courses you can sign up for to learn. Head to places like Udemy, Teachable, Thinkific and have a look around. Also, don’t forget to take a look at your local library or community centre too. Very often, we jump straight online when we want to learn something but the exact thing you’re looking for might be happening in your own community, so go take a look at what’s out there.

By learning about something that isn’t directly related to your degree, you’ll be developing a whole new set of skills. Your degree will benefit in two ways: (1) you get even better at the process of learning; (2) You develop new interests that you can pursue to get a better study/life balance – lots of students burn out in final year, and having something new you can do outside of your studies is a very good way of preventing that.

(2) Employability

The final summer break from college or university is a great time to be working on employability. Your employability is the likelihood of you getting a job and keeping a job. The kind of things that matter here go way beyond the subject knowledge that you’re acquiring at university. Things like: communication and interpersonal skills; problem solving skills; working under pressure; being a self-starter and using your initiative; being organized; being adaptable; working in a team; knowing how to negotiate and compromise; literacy and numeracy; valuing diversity and difference.

These skills are transferable: they’re useful across a whole host of different industries and sectors. It doesn’t actually matter if you’re not sure what you want to do for work after university, because these skills will be helpful in whatever you do. Are there any you think you need to work on? Make it your mission to get better at them this summer. Start off with the resources at your college or university – head to your institution’s intranet and search for “employability” – you will find loads of stuff to get started.

(3) Semester prep

Often, towards the end of the summer before final year, students start to feel anxious about the new semester. Minimise this stress by setting aside a couple of hours at some point during the summer to logon to your college or university intranet, note down the term dates for next semester, download any module or unit guides for the classes you’re taking, make a note of the assignment deadlines and put them in your calendar.

Now, work back from them. What will you need to do the week before classes start? What will you need to do two weeks before they start? Do you need to order any books that might take a while to arrive? Do you need to do any pre-reading? Set reminders for all these things.

The final year of college or university will go by very quickly. By getting prepared with all the small details now, you’ll have less to worry about when you are right in the middle of it.

If you have something that’s cropped up every year before the start of the semester, something that really worries you and causes you massive anxiety, you need to sort that out now. Because you cannot let that derail your final year. Whatever that is – you need to tackle it head on. Whether that’s social anxiety, worrying about money, feeling overwhelmed when classes start – you are responsible for getting across that. No one else is going to do it for you. so check out my video on changing one thing for my tips on how to get started.

(4) Get intentional

Last but by no means least, get intentional about enjoying your summer! Be as organised and driven about having fun and enjoying yourself as you are about your studies and your graduate employability.

This will be your last student summer so make some fun plans!

What do you want to do this summer? Where do you want to go? Who do you want to spend time with? What books (not related to your course) do you want to read? What films do you want to watch? What events do you want to go to?

Sit down with a pen and paper and come up with a summer plan. How can you make those things happen? Who do you need to get in touch with? What needs to be coordinated, booked, reserved?

These things are really important and by writing them down, you make them real. It’s not a summer wish list, it’s a summer “I have to make this happen” list. You will never have a summer like this one again. Some of the people in your social circle now might have moved on this time next year, you might have done, you may all be in very different places. Don’t put things off. The memories you’ll make this summer will be precious. Life is short, so make those things happen!

Have a great summer and check out my YouTube video on this below!