Student speak

I always thought my life as an undergraduate student was balanced with a perfect blend of academic and extracurricular activities.

Although I always knew student life was a platform to groom oneself for the world of work, I wasn't sure if I was working towards it in the right way. Upon discussing the issue with my seniors, I was made to realise the missing factor. Work experience! Aaahh ...

I looked around for a part-time position. Soon I got one and started managing studies with work. It was a great learning experience, an extra dimension added to the theoretical knowledge gained during lectures. Work experience has benefitted me in numerous ways, which I'd like to share with all.

Time management

You have to deliver your best at work without compromising your studies. Dividing your work load and setting priorities, intelligently, arm you for a successful career.

Practicing skills

You get a chance to implement the ideas and concepts grasped during lectures. It also gives you a chance to test future career plans. Obviously, work experience in the sector you hope to make a career in is useful, but any kind of work can provide valuable skills. It develops the ability to deal professionally with colleagues, network and have first-hand involvement in the work place.

Communication skills

Expressing and communicating in a professional environment is as important as basic knowledge about your subject area.

Proving yourself

Work experience can show one's determination to break into a chosen career, your initiative and skills to a future employer.

Making contacts

This opens up valuable recruiting opportunities. Personal contacts made while working as a student provide inside knowledge, introductions and references that might not be available otherwise.

Source of income

Some self-earned money not only boosts confidence, but also provides a useful means of supporting oneself and reducing your parents' financial burden

Money management

You learn to manage your hard-earned money smartly by investing it in further education, gaining extra skills, helping those in need and by saving.

Value for employers

We students view work experience as an important complement to our studies, while employers greatly value any practical experience graduates have gained during their degree.

Work experience is not ‘cheap labour' for businesses. Neither is it a ‘waste of time'; in fact, it is an important part of an undergraduate's life.

My part-time work has helped me figure out that there's more to getting the job we want than having the right degree.

Today's employers look for skills that one simply wouldn't get through study alone.

- The writer is an electronics and communications engineering student at the Ajman University of Science & Technology Network