Alternatives to travel when you are a student

By Paul Godin


When I used to be a further education student over 20 years ago, I was in the top 5% of folks in Great Britain who basically attended university. We were the elite, the selected few who went to the highest realm of higher education.

So long as you were reasonably sensible you might come out of university with a arts degree and be guaranteed a a good management job. That's what's occurred to me.

We had a reasonable number of Scandanavian scholars attending our university who obviously would have needed some form of travel insurance for students but to local students like myself the concept of travelling wasn't as big an idea as it is in 2012.

Folk like myself had to work in shops or do summer odd jobs to save up sufficient funds for 7 days of sun in Spain.

Today's scholars are keen on taking year long expeditions to the Far East, Australia or the Americas; reminiscent of The Beach motion picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

During the past 20 years the proportion of the student population attending universities has increased as more centres of higher education have been awarded university standing.

So as the provision of varsity graduates has increased the value of a university degree has been devalued in the eyes of potential companies.

I have met call centre companies who have interviewed youngsters with Oxford and Cambridge bound qualifications that don't really want to go to further education for 4 years and have to fill superstore shelves to pay back £40,000 of student debt.

So here are some alternatives to travelling when you're a student.

First. Spend your summer working for a firm. Just ask them to pay your train or bus fares. You are skilled enough to help them with online marketing, supporting their sales team, doing research for them into new markets, creating a site or starting their social media promotions.

2nd, spend some time creating a company for yourself. You just need one product concept. You have all of the free web tools out there to start engaging with prospect shoppers, buyers or financiers.

3rd, if you're sporty, there are plenty of sport events around the world. Get project management experience working at golfing events, grand prix or athletics and see a bit of the globe.

4. Write a book. Publish it digitally using the iBook store or Fast Pencil. You've a book in you even at young age and you've got all of the digital abilities and social networks to show off to a prospective employer all the abilities they require; whether the book sells or not.

There are lots of alternatives to travel. Just do something that you cae about which adds a unique selling point to your resume when you enter the real world.




About the Author: