Uni set me on a career path, but work experience got me a job

I remember overhearing my university roommates talking about me after they’d come back from a night out. I’d had a long day of work and classes, as well as an early start the next morning, so had opted to stay in.

“Laura never goes out with us. She’s at university, and she’s wasting all her time working,” one of them whispered. “She’s so boring.”

“Take every opportunity”: Laura Chung graduated from UTS with a BA in journalism and social political science in 2018.

They had a point. I didn’t go out every night (although I still had my share of drunken adventures). Most of the time I was juggling a full-time journalism and social political science degree and multiple jobs and internships. If I was going to be hungover, it needed to be carefully planned out.

It might not have been the most “fun” university experience, but it’s what I felt I needed to do to ensure I had the best employment opportunities when I left. The way I saw it, every internship and job that came my way would help me land the next opportunity. I pictured it like a ladder: each step getting me closer to a good job when I graduated.

It’s grim hunting for jobs alongside your classmates. Conversations quickly change from gossip and laughter to ones of dread: “Have you heard back from this job?” or “What did you put in your application?” or “Do you think I should apply for this one?”

Without experience, there’s nothing much to differentiate you from the thousands of other applicants, but I wanted to make sure that happened while at uni rather than after graduation.

The latest data from the Graduates Outcomes Survey, which surveys higher education students four to six months after course completion, found that 55 per cent of 2021 communications graduates had a job within the industry. The figures were slightly better last year when 68 per cent were employed.

That’s the second-lowest graduation employment proportion of the degrees (creative arts is the lowest, while those with a pharmacy degree had a 96.2 per cent success rate).

Internships also provide on-the-job training that you won’t get in the classroom. Working in newsrooms I was able to start learning what the industry was like, whether it was something I wanted to do, and to start building a portfolio I could use when I needed to find a graduate job.

Not every job or internship was glamorous, of course. I certainly did my fair share of bad ones. There were the 3am starts for a radio show, the one where I packed and shipped hundreds of magazines, and tried to run social media campaigns on topics no one cared about. But I knew journalism jobs can be hard to come by, so I did what I thought was necessary to succeed. Coupled with a strong work ethic instilled by my parents, and the determination not to fail (or dumbness not to have much of a social life), I pushed on.

During each opportunity, I got a taste of tight deadlines of a few hours, working alongside other journalists, accountability for my workload and time management, and – perhaps most importantly – what it’s like to share a fridge with 50 other people.

And the hard work paid off. Months away from completing my degree, The Sydney Morning Herald offered eight cadetships. More than 700 people applied for these roles, including some of my classmates.

I was lucky and joined the Herald in November 2018. While a lot of that came down to good fortune, I am convinced that without the endless internships, jobs and missing out on nights out, there is no way I would have been considered.

Laura (right) with her fellow Herald trainees from 2018, from left: Sarah Keoghan, Ben Weir, Max Koslowski, Josh Dye, Natassia Chrysanthos and Nick Bonyhady. Absent: Matt Bungard.Credit: Wolter Peeters

Even now, my greatest advice to students is to take every opportunity that comes your way. Being at university is all about opportunity and finding out what you want to do.

So why not take those chances to test if you’re doing the right degree? To make invaluable contacts that will help you later on in life, and to help you stand out when the graduate job hunt begins?

But make sure you make time to squeeze fun in.

Laura Chung is an environment reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.

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