Time to think about the future again

My summer holidays, which were shorter due to my internship this year, passed quickly, and the final stage of my schoolmates’ and my bachelor program came. The representatives of the school made no secret of how difficult a test was ahead of us in the coming ten months at the welcome lecture. Yet they assured us, and confirmed from their own experience, that the third year was the best in their studies. Now we understand what they were talking about.

The amount of work to do during the third year is really huge. In addition to usual semester essays whose scope has grown significantly for this year, we are kept busy by working on our theses. I have a meeting with my thesis supervisor in a few days; I will introduce the topic and schedule for my thesis to him. Having taken his comments into consideration, I will be able to start my own research, which requires at least several weeks for a thesis. Following another meeting with my supervisor, I am supposed to hand in the first draft of the entire thesis on March 1.

I manage to find time for other activities and for using my last year at the university too. First, I was elected onto the board of the university’s International Student Association a week ago. I want to use my experience with services for international students in this position, and contribute to making them better for future students.

Second, I enrolled in a new research assistant pilot project at the school, which allows several selected students in their last year to directly participate in the primary research led by one of the faculty’s teachers. Professor Colin Thain (who is also the director of our faculty) chose me as an assistant in his research into the UK’s central bank. In addition to experience, a letter of recommendation will be my reward from him.

Finally, now that we all have made it successfully to the last year of our bachelor program, it’s time to start planning our lives once our studies are over. This means looking for a future employer for most of my schoolmates – most people in the UK traditionally complete their studies as Bachelors. Various career fairs and discussions take place almost every day now.

I, however, plan to continue my education in a Master’s program – I would like to deepen my knowledge studying my major (international relations and economics) at a university in the US. As a result, I spent all the semester going through the incredibly broad range of Master’s programs offered by American universities and searching for the perfect one. I actually found a few of those, so now I’m quickly putting together materials needed for applications. Admission will not be easy, but I think I have a good chance given my results to date.