Hi there so I am based in the UK and graduated university last year. I have been trying to plan my references for my application. I have one already from my final year university personal project advisor. But getting another has proved challenging. I have emailed every other lecturer I encountered at university and have not received a single reply. (I find this slightly odd, with this being a global top 100 university but then again, it seems, like many other universities, they take too large a cohort each year and as such, lecturers not responding can become the norm. I only met my tutor once throughout all 3 years at uni and he also has not responded to me.)
As for employers, outside of education, I only had a part time job at a supermarket and my line manager, never gave me her email and retired from the job several years ago, making contacting her basically impossible (plus she didn’t seem to like me much anyway unfortunately).
I started a full time computing job 2 months ago and by the time of the application deadline, I will only have been working there around six months. I don’t think it would be good form to ask my manager for a reference in this circumstance and risk my position for a programme with somewhat low odds of acceptance.
The only other option I can think of is the head teacher of my college where I did an extended BTEC course before university (I believe this would be considered high school level in the US). He has given me a reference in the past so may be able to do so again. The thing is, is that I don’t know if an academic reference below university level is allowed or if this will automatically get my application rejected. For reference, the UK jet application website has this to say on references
“ONE academic reference from your former university tutor / lecturer AND ONE professional reference from your current or former employer
OR
TWO professional references, each from either a current or former employer”
It seems almost clear from this that all academic references must be at least university level so I am not sure what I can do here. If anyone has any, experience, advice or ideas on this, I would really appreciate it. Many thanks.
by Murky_Intention2216