Things to do on a gap year

I'm currently on a gap year and will be starting at a target university in the UK in September/October this year. I was wondering what I could be doing with my spare time to improve my chances at breaking into IB.  I had considered getting certifications e.g. in Excel and Bloomberg but the consensus from old threads seem to be that these are useless. I had thought about doing some form of volunteering at the weekend, though not sure if this would be useful. If anyone has any ideas I would appreciate it.

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You need to be preparing for spring week applications. Bloomberg/excel certifs/any program which offers any practical experience is going to be pretty useless as this stage of applications they're not wanting to see any practical technical skill tbh. Moreso having an interesting personality and demonstrable interest. Join SEO/whatever organisations you can and attend the firm talks in the step into finance sessions, mention the names of people who speak in cover letters and interviews and have a genuinely interesting background. Less of the "I did this finance work exp and enjoyed it xyz", more of the things that will make you stand out.

Volunteering could actually be a very powerful thing to bring up in intervies/hirevues if you talk about it correctly. Be bubbly.

 

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