When telling with my mum about the experience I wanted to gain this year, my vision was shadowing clinicians — assisting in their admin tasks or data reviewing, or something that would let me add clinical experience to my CV. As an aspiring psychologist, clinical experience is a golden ticket to a graduate employer. After expressing her support, my mum warned me about narrowing my vision: ‘remember, any experience is better than no experience’. I naively disregarded this statement; I’ve always worked hard and usually it pays off, so why would this be any different?
Of course, I knew Covid-19 was going to be a constraint but I accounted for it: I’d work even harder; enquire on every website supporting people with their mental health; go to LinkedIn seminars and learn to make connections; check adverts from the university every day. This led to me being ignored and any answer I did get was not what I wanted. My second option was in research (this develops skills that every psychologist needs). There was nothing here either.
My initial confidence turned into frustration at the effort I put in and lack of results being returned. Although this happens with assignments, at least I get feedback on how to do better and concentrate my efforts in rewarding ways. Even when looking for part-time jobs, I’d always been able to find something. Everywhere I’d been looking for experience was returning with nothing. There was no indication of where else to look or when a volunteer might be needed.
This was when the words of my mum rang in my head.
I hated the idea of looking at my experience like that because I do things with purpose, not to fulfil a requirement. My purpose at the time was to make attractive to future employers. This had to be reframed.
I widened my lens, included more into my vision and this paid off. I became a virtual mentor to children which, at the beginning of my search, didn’t appeal to me; I thought mentoring wasn’t directly applicable to a career in clinical psychology. However, mentoring has been a gratifying experience. Being a role model to children and seeing them develop character has been incredibly rewarding and made me want to continue mentoring in the future. Alongside this, the skills I am gaining as a mentor — for example, learning about safeguarding practices and how to see and appropriately raise concerns about a child’s welfare — are also things I know I will be able to talk about in future job applications.
Having clear path through university is a good thing; it gives me focus and helps drive my work. Though, if you are like me, this shouldn’t narrow your experience hunting. Skills can be extracted from anything and made relevant to what you want to do when you look at the experience from a different perspective.
