It's no secret that working life can be stressful. Whether it's running to catch the train in time in the morning, dealing with a crisis at work or having to juggle personal commitments on top of it all; the 40-hour work week can leave you feeling quite drained by the time the weekend is in sight.

Mental health awareness in the Music Industry is a hotly debated subject at the moment. High profile suicides and celebrities coming forward to openly discuss their mental health concerns, has led to a huge awareness of the depth of the problem.

So if you are a fun, friendly, caring person, show it; if you love helping others to learn, talk about that; if you are prepared to have a go at anything or are versatile and adaptable, give examples in answer to the 'Tell me about yourself' style questions; if you tend to think differently to others or are good at inspiring creative thinking in other people, describe those situations.

Scholarly activity is a key part of high quality higher education delivery. It can take many forms, for example research, conference/event attendance and /or delivery of presentations/workshops, consultancy to industry, curriculum development that involves literature searching or work with a Higher Education Institution, and industrial secondments.

For those who aren't already familiar, Snapchat is a smartphone app that allows users to quickly share 'snaps' containing photos and videos with friends and followers in their network. The USP is that, once opened, the snaps only stay on the recipient's feed for around 10 seconds before vanishing without a trace. However, creating Snapchat stories allows you to create and keep adding to something that will be available for 24 hours.

If we were able to bring a medieval carpenter forward in time and present them with a modern construction site, there is very little that would not be recognisable to our medieval friend. What might they see? A large, muddy area with a stack of materials on the ground; a number of people carrying things; people waiting for materials to be moved from one place to another; some machinery for lifting materials. And, if it started raining, most of the work would stop.

When you google yourself, what happens? Usually one of four things:

a) It's exactly as you expected and you are rather pleased with yourself; b) all the results are nothing to do with you and it appears that, in fact, you don't exist at all; c) what does come up has mistakes in it or isn't up to date; d) you want to cover your face in shame.

Now imagine a recruiter has just googled your name and come up with the same results as you.

The point, and there is one labouring away here, is that career progression, what you choose to study, work and do now, may not have a linear and direct relevance to what you do next, but the most valuable skills you have are those you use to complete your studies, to cope with friends and family and to manage your day to day life.

I studied Archaeology, then worked as an archaeologist, after which I worked on a building site. There are clear transferable skills there; digging holes and getting muddy with a big pickaxe.

Fortunately, building up a good set of transferable skills can help set you apart from the competition and make bridging the gap between student life and the professional world far less daunting. Here are some examples of the skills and experience you can gain as a student and help secure your ideal full-time role.

1. Your degree course

In the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, there are a great many impressive works of art; ranging from the medieval to the modern. Some, like Rembrandt's "The Night Watch" (1642) are of a scale that makes an impression both in size and mastery of technique. Others, like Gerrit Rietveld's early prototype for the "Zig Zag Chair" (1934) are special because it reveals (in its exposed screws and joints) the underlying thinking behind an iconic piece of modern furniture.