“I don’t really have any experience.”
It’s something we hear surprisingly often from students preparing for university applications. They look at other applicants and see internships, leadership titles, competitions and impressive-sounding achievements. Then they look at their own lives and conclude that they have nothing worth talking about.
But that’s usually not true.
The problem isn’t necessarily a lack of experience. It’s recognising which experiences matter – and understanding what they say about you.
Universities aren’t simply interested in collecting a list of impressive activities. What matters is what you have learned, how you’ve developed and, particularly for competitive courses, how you’ve explored your academic interests beyond the classroom.
So before deciding that you haven’t done enough, take another look at what you’ve already done.
1. School projects
Think beyond your grades.
Have you worked on a group project, delivered a presentation, carried out research, solved a difficult problem or taken responsibility for getting something finished? Perhaps your group wasn’t working particularly well and you helped organise everyone. Maybe your research took you down an unexpected path or something went wrong and you had to find another approach.
Those experiences could demonstrate teamwork, communication, research, problem-solving, resilience and leadership.
The interesting part isn’t simply: “I completed a school project.”
It’s: What did you contribute? What happened? What did you learn?
2. Club and societies
You don’t have to be president of a society for the experience to count. You might have organised an event, welcomed new members, managed social media, suggested a change, helped resolve a disagreement or simply become someone other members rely upon.
Leadership isn’t always about having a title. Sometimes it is about seeing what needs doing and taking responsibility for doing it.
3. Volunteering and community involvement
Volunteering can provide excellent examples for applications, scholarship forms and interviews – but simply stating that you volunteered isn’t enough. Ask yourself:
What problem was the organisation trying to solve? What was your role? Who did you work with? What did you find difficult? Did you change anything? What did the experience teach you?
Two students might complete exactly the same volunteering programme and learn completely different things from it. The experience matters. Your reflection on it matters even more.
4. Sport, music and the arts
Students sometimes leave these out because they don’t seem “academic.” But think about what sustained involvement might demonstrate.
Training for a sport can require discipline and resilience. Performing can develop confidence and the ability to work under pressure. Playing in a team can teach collaboration. Learning an instrument requires persistence and self-management.
That doesn’t mean every activity belongs in every university application. The question is: Is this experience relevant to what I’m trying to demonstrate?
If it is, it may be valuable evidence.
5. Part-time jobs and work experience
You don’t need an internship at a famous company for work experience to count. A Saturday job in a shop, helping in an office, tutoring younger students, working during school holidays or spending time observing someone at work can all teach you something.
Perhaps you dealt with a difficult customer. Managed competing priorities. Had to learn something quickly. Made a mistake and corrected it. Worked with people very different from you. Those experiences can provide strong evidence of skills such as communication, initiative, reliability, adaptability and problem-solving.
And if you have completed an internship, remember this: The name of the organisation isn’t the evidence. What you did, learned and subsequently explored is much more interesting.
6. Competitions and challenges
Have you entered an essay competition, hackathon, debate, science challenge, business competition, Olympiad or sporting event? Don’t only record the ones you won.
Preparing for something difficult can be valuable in itself. Perhaps you discovered a new academic interest. Maybe your first approach failed or feedback made you rethink an idea.
Sometimes the most useful application example isn’t: “I won.” It’s: “I changed my thinking.”
7. Family responsibilities
This is an area students can easily overlook. Have you helped care for younger siblings or relatives? Supported a family business, translated for family members or managed responsibilities at home alongside school?
These experiences may have required considerable organisation, maturity, communication and resilience. You don’t need to turn personal circumstances into a dramatic story. But don’t automatically dismiss genuine responsibilities simply because they happened outside school.
Experience doesn’t only happen in formal programmes.
8. Independent learning
This is particularly important for university applications. What have you explored simply because you wanted to know more?
Perhaps you’ve read a book related to the subject you want to study. You might have followed a podcast, taken an online course, attended a lecture, visited a museum or read an article. Maybe you watched a university lecture online or even researched an idea that came up in class.
These are often described as supercurricular activities: learning that takes your academic interests beyond your normal school curriculum. But again, don’t simply create a list.
Instead of: I read X, listened to Y and completed Z. Ask:
- What interested me?
- What did I learn?
- Did I agree?
- What surprised me?
- What question did it leave me with?
- What did I explore next?
That’s where academic curiosity starts to become visible.
9. Problems you’ve solved
This is one of the best places to look for evidence of your skills. Think about moments when something wasn’t working.
Maybe an event wasn’t attracting enough people, or your team couldn’t agree on something. Perhaps a project was falling behind, or students at your school needed something that didn’t exist. You may have spotted an inefficient process or noticed someone needing help.
What did you do?
You might have researched the problem, persuaded other people, proposed an idea, changed an approach or simply taken responsibility.
Universities, scholarship providers and future employers aren’t only interested in the activities you’ve joined. They’re interested in how you think and what you do when something needs to change.
10. Something you started yourself
This doesn’t need to be a company or international charity. It could be:
- Creating a newsletter
- Tutoring younger students
- Building an app
- Starting a small business
- Organising a community initiative
- Creating a podcast
- Starting a club because one didn’t exist
- Creating something online
The scale isn’t necessarily what makes the experience interesting. Initiative is about moving from an idea to action.
Now turn your experience into evidence
Once you start looking properly, you may discover that you have far more material than you thought. But there is another important step. Don’t just record what you did.
For every useful experience, ask yourself:
- What was happening?
- What was my role?
- What did I actually do?
- What happened as a result?
- What did I learn?
- What skills does this demonstrate?
Compare these two statements:
“I helped organise a school fundraising event.”
and:
“When ticket sales for our school fundraising event were lower than expected, I worked with a six-person team to rethink our promotion. We changed how we communicated the event to students and ultimately exceeded our original attendance target.”
Now we can see evidence of teamwork, communication, initiative and problem-solving. That’s the difference between claiming a skill and demonstrating one.
Start building your evidence bank now
One of the hardest times to remember everything you’ve done is when you’re staring at an application form with a deadline approaching. So don’t wait until then. Start keeping an evidence bank now.
Every few weeks, record experiences, responsibilities, achievements, challenges and things you’ve learned. Some will eventually be useful for university applications. Others might become examples for scholarship forms, interviews, CVs or future job applications. And some won’t be used at all. That’s fine.
The purpose isn’t to make everything sound impressive. It’s to notice your development while it’s happening.
Try the HFA Skills & Experience Builder
We’ve created a free HFA Skills & Experience Builder to help you do exactly this. It helps you capture your experiences, identify the skills they demonstrate, build stronger evidence and turn your best examples into STAR stories you can use later.
Your future applications will be much easier if you start capturing the evidence today.
