Editorial

Like many of Imperial’s students who are coming to the end of their final year here, I am engaged in a long, drawn out struggle to discover what it is that I shall be doing after the summer is over. The options are quite varied, and the yawning chasm that is the end of conventional education is quite wide. It is a daunting task, yet also quite a rewarding one.

The selection process established by many companies over a great number of years of interview and intake often becomes as revealing to the applicant as to the employer. Complex and wordy forms designed to eke the best example of your cunning in group situations or your finest hour of leadership make you think about what you have actually done in the twenty or so years previously.

Never before has there been an opportunity to find out what makes you tick (unless you are already a regular on the psychiatrist’s couch) as when a psychometric test is wafted under your nose. These crafty documents aim to find out your true personality by asking lots of similar comparative questions (just in case you are cheating). Just as valuable is the post-rejection analysis of why your application failed, if you can face talking to that particular company again.

Not everyone, of course, rushes to find themselves a career or even a job. Further study, ‘travelling’ or a deliberate spell of unemployment also occupy the "what are you doing now" files of graduates. Whatever it may be that you end up doing, the end of your final year and the slide into ‘the real world’ can be a major occasion.

Now, however, I open another brochure and fill in another form with little snippets from my past.