February Newsletter - Resilience, Rejection and Growth

Hello Ultimately Uni Community! 👋

Today's newsletter discusses job applications, rejection and this month’s theme. But firstly, I need to say THANK YOU! This first month has been a whirlwind, navigating a new venture, balancing UU’s growth with my studies, my sister’s exam season, editing our amazing new UU Writer’s posts, applying for jobs - so many things have happened! I am so pleased that we started this blog page and its uptake makes me even more excited for our future plans for the UU Community. 

This brings me to our theme of the month: resilience 💪. Ultimately, resilience is the ‘bounce back factor’ - how can I reflect on things that happen to me (positive or negative) and ultimately… bounce back? Resilience is something I thought I had, but many times needed more of it. Recently, I have been applying for various graduate opportunities, spending hours tailoring my applications, researching the companies, going through interviews, assessment centres, rearranging my life to prepare for these opportunities, only to be met with “we regret to inform you”. Don’t get me wrong, this hasn’t necessarily been a bad thing but this is where resilience comes in!

Firstly, I am very proud of myself for getting to the final stages of the interview process, and being invited to interviews and assessment centres. Secondly, despite my disappointment, I’m grateful for the feedback I’ve received. However, not all feedback is detailed or relevant to my next application, but there’s always something to learn! 

Ultimately, it’s February and I have a whole Medical Science degree to finish, so I have decided to refocus; making my studies my main priority and not getting disheartened. I will still be applying for jobs but on a less intense and even more calculated scale. 

As we enter March and the season of spring we have new goals and objectives to align with next month's theme of growth🌷📈. 

🏆 Reach 150 followers on LinkedIn, to shift our newsletter from our mailing list to this platform - to do this we need your help sharing our socials and working with us to grow the UU community! 

🏆 Launch Motivation Mondays - food for thought to help keep you on track with your goals 

🏆 Expand our resources to include organisations which help students with career advice and employability 

What I would like you, our UU Community, to think about as we head into March is: when was a time where you’ve had to be resilient? What did you learn? How did it shape you? What is something you’d like to achieve in March? 

Resilience is different for everyone, and we’d love to hear what it means to you. Let’s grow stronger together—drop a comment, reach out on socials, or send us an email!

As always, thank you for being ultimately…YOU! 

Written by Chloe, Co-Founder of Ultimately Uni