Scarlett
Class of 2016, Graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics with Economics from LSE, and completed a Master's degree in Business Analytics at Imperial College London. Currently employed at the Royal Bank of Canada in London, UK.
As time flies, I have been working in the UK for nearly two years, from a fresh graduate, to become more mature. When I used to be a student, I always heard that workplace is quite different from the campus, which I now agree with, so I will also share my experience with you.
This is my typical day: Nowadays as UK implemented hybrid working policy, most people come to the office three days a week while spend the other two days working from home. If I come to office, I usually wake up at 7:30 in the morning and reach office between 8:30 and 8:45. The first thing I do when arrive is to turn on the computer and check the emails. Generally speaking, there will be 10-50 emails, but most of the emails generated from system, so the ones that need to be read carefully are about 1-10. After this, I begin my working day. 12:30-13:30 noon is normally the lunch break time, while 5:00 in the afternoon is the time off work. During the day, there will be meetings, colleagues will ask you questions, and you also need to ask colleagues questions, so the real time spent doing your own work is not that much. I will stay some more time when I cannot finish my work, or work for a while after I get back home.
Hard work is needed. In the office, there must be some people, who are passionate every day, with full energy. I always wonder how they do it, because I actually have the habit of lunch nap, but there is no this saying in Britain. It will be really bad if you sleep on the desk in office for lunch break. This hour lunch break is basically used for eating, or chatting with colleagues. Some people deal with their own things. Every day when it turns to 2-3pm, I will be particularly sleepy, during which I will drink coffee, or tea, to keep me awake. Also, there are a lot of details from work to pay attention to. Every day you need to deal with a lot of things, and none of which can be ignored. Especially the email, if you are not careful, it is likely to send to the wrong person. So you need to be highly focused and be able to maintain this status. With such as high working pressure, it can be a great challenge to your body and mental strength. How to save time, how to improve efficiency, and how to maintain good working habits at work is very important. I will highlight the key email, will attach sticker on my desk to remind yourself. At the same time, I will keep a good communication with colleagues, tell them the estimated time I can finish the task. If not, I will inform them in advance, which can help managers to keep a good control of project progress. Stepping into the career life can be a great change in people’s personality, especially from a student’s mindset to become a professional’s mindset. There will be a tough transformation process. For new people in the workplace, it is crucial to learn to maintain a modest attitude, for which I think it can even be the most important thing. Correct your mindset and the following things will go much more smoothly. I also experienced encountering things that I could not even think of, and I also wondered whether I was wrong, or the rules of the society are wrong.
Whenever I face things that I feel uncertain, whenever I need to decide between emotion and ration, I will think what my purpose is. As long as I can achieve my goal, I don’t care what I will encounter during the process. Sometimes the seemingly tough self-changes are actually the tenacity to do things and the firm determination to achieve goals, including the strong self-control ability to exclude emotion to make a right decision.
Be good at learning at work, learn from colleagues, learn from leaders is crucial. Every job position has a specific needed knowledge. Since you are responsible for this position, it is necessary to learn the skills needed for this position as soon as possible. I often hear my Chinese friends saying that as a Chinese, in the British workplace, in an environment where English is not my native language, you need to work twice hard. But from another point of view, it is such an environment that makes me try my best to improve my, and to adapt to the new environment, and always keep the sincerity for this job. In such a fast-paced environment, you will certainly encounter problems that you have never encountered. But in the workplace, I won’t add in any of my emotion. Everything that happened today ends today, and the next day is a new start. Sometimes I feel like I am a machine, to keep rotating, and to turn as fast as possible, and then to finish the job.
I still remember the time I lived close to an economic centre in Shenzhen. When I went home from school every week, I looked at the office building lights, thinking of Shenzhen top talents are gathered inside. I always imaged one day I can have the opportunity to work in it, but at the same time I will feel the dream is somehow untouchable. At that time, I could not image, after six or seven years of hardworking, now I can achieve, even beyond my dream of that time. I certainly have encountered lots of difficulties, some of which I thought it was difficult to get over. But at the same time I thought I have already gained such a good opportunity, which I cherish.
