Help with applying to University and careers information

Help with applying to University

Peterborough Regional College is fortunate to have en experienced careers adviser to help all of you looking to apply to study in Higher Education next year. Level 3 and Access students should all have had a visit from Matt about writing your personal statement and using OSCAR to do this.

For this half term, the LRC is supplementing the help given by your tutor and the careers department by offering appointments to those of you who want some initial help with getting on to OSCAR and finding your way around it. We will not be offering careers advice or checking the content of your personal statement but hopefully we can help you make sure that you have everything ready for when you have your appointment with a Careers Adviser. You should ask your tutor if you need subject-related information.

Booking an appointment

The LRC will offer 20 minute OSCAR appointments at these times only:

Tuesdays at 15:00, 15:20, 15:40

Wednesdays at 15:00, 15:20, 15:40

Thursdays at 10:40, 11:00, 11:20

Please book in advance (these are not drop-in sessions) by phoning or emailing the LRC or by coming in and booking with a member of staff. 

You will need to have filled in your OSCAR privacy statement form first, handed it in to the careers office and been given your OSCAR login. 

A few resources about going to University and writing Personal Statements (other than OSCAR).

Which? has a site dedicated to all things Uni. See https://university.which.co.uk/

Radio 5 Live has a short podcast about writing your personal statement.

UCAS has a YouTube channel with numerous videos about applying to University.

Many Universities have also produced their own guides to writing a Personal Statement so check out their websites too.

Online careers information - eCLIPS

Whether you are going to University or not, you have access to an online resource full of information about different careers and jobs which you may be interested in. This is available from Careers pages on Moodle or from the Electronic Resources page found under the LRC menu tab. You will find the login information here too.

National Libraries Week

National Libraries Week

During the week 8th - 12th October we marked National Libraries Week with some activities which focused on Well being (the theme had been chosen nationally due to World Mental Health Day being in the same week).

Libraries Week Wellbeing display
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

At the beginning of the week, beauty students offered hand massages to students studying in the LRC. In the middle of the week, we hosted a cake and green ribbon badge sale with the proceeds going to the Mental Health Foundation. We also promoted our mental health resource leaflet. Thank you to everyone who supported the event - including the Student Union and College Counsellor who had stands at the event.

Libraries Week event cake stand
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

Some interesting facts about libraries

To finish, Reader's Digest (American) put together 10 fascinating facts about libraries which you might find interesting.

National Poetry Day

National Poetry Day

Andrew McDonnell

Today is National Poetry Day and so the LRC marked the occasion with a poetry reading from one of the University Centre Peterborough lecturers - Andrew McDonnell. Andrew is an English lecturer at UCP and has a book of poetry coming out next year.

Andrew McDonnell reads his poetry
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

National Poetry Day display

We also asked staff and students to send us some poetic song lyrics which we added to our National Poetry Day display (on the butterfly).

National Poetry Day display
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

A common poetic device used in songs is personification. This is where a writer describes something which isn't alive with human characteristics. In Sting's Fields of Gold, "the sun in his jealous sky" describes the sun as if it has a male gender and ascribes the emotion of jealousy to the sky. Of course the sky isn't jealous of the sun (as far as we know!), but describing it this way creates more of an atmosphere and sounds more interesting. This idea can be used in descriptive written work as well as poetry. Can you think of other music lyrics which use personification?