With many Easter work experiences and summer internships on hold, our careers advisers suggest an ABC of skills often looked for by graduate employers, that you can work on from home
Additional languages
Learn or improve your language skills. Non-European languages such as Arabic, Mandarin or Russian are often required by employers. French is in high demand for international development careers. The Language Centre offers a wide range of online resources. Try also DuoLingo (always free) and Babbel (offering one month free currently).
Blog, vlog, and/or set up a website
For journalism, media, publishing and a wide variety of communications careers, get blogging, vlogging, or set up a website. Setting up a blog can also be a good way to develop and evidence your interest in a particular career sector – commenting on things you have read/watched/learned about, and doing the research for your posts. These can be a driver for developing a network by responding to the posts of others, sharing content and having digital conversations. Free blogsites include WordPress, Blogger and Wix.
Coding
Our careers advisers emphasise the importance of learning to code for a wide variety of careers. If you haven’t coded before, we recommend Python as a starter. If you have used MATLAB as part of a course at Cambridge, can you convert some of your code into another language? See links to online training providers and MOOCS here. You could then put the skills in to practice by analysing data sets from Kaggle.
Arts student frightened of coding? Listen to our talk on data journalism, overcoming the barrier of code (it’s the tenth talk on our list).
Data and Excel
Skills in handling data are highly valuable in almost every career. Progress your Excel skills, including learning how to produce pivot tables. You can learn a lot of Excel using these free resources.
Futurelearn…
…has a plethora of short courses – everything from Creating Online Resources to Understanding Fashion and an Introduction to Emergency Planning and Preparedness. You only pay if you want to keep the resources or need a certificate. Skillshare does something similar.