If you are reading this there is a good chance that you have either finished school or have come to the end of another academic year at university and you are now wondering what to do for your summer.

We all have some vague idea of what we want to do during our summer; something purposeful, something exciting, something which may look good on our personal statements or CVs and most definitely something fun, to be honest the list goes on.
There are so many things that you could achieve during your summer that is why this list is created to give you some suggestions. You can thank me later.
 

1. Enter a Writing Competition

 
This first suggestion is something which is easy to do and yet is often disregarded completely and people seem to forget about it as a spare time activity. The good things about entering competitions is that there are so many ones which are free to enter and many of them also offer cash prizes, so not only are they a great opportunity to practise your creative writing techniques but if you win it’s something which looks impressive on CV and the prize money will good in your bank account.

Here are some good ones to consider entering:

The Commonwealth Short Story Prize
This prestigious short story competition offers a substantial prize fund to the writer of the best piece of unpublished short fiction by a commonwealth writer. If you think winning is a long shot, stop your worrying because there are also regional winners, therefore you could be awarded a nice £2500 sum too, so there’s still a tasty incentive if you don’t win the overall prize.

Reader’s Digest 100-Word-Story Competition
This little competition is strictly limited to entries of exactly 100 words – no more, no less! It’s a fun challenge and won’t require too much time, just a fairly substantial amount of thought and effort. The cash prize however isn’t little whatsoever, you could win a beautiful £2000.
 

2. Enter an Art Competition

 
Partaking in an art competition is a great way to get creative during the holidays. It’s a chance to push yourself to be more imaginative and more hardworking, creating something you’ll ultimately be proud of.

Here are some good ones to consider entering:

The National Open Art Competition
 The National Open Art Competition is run by The Chichester Art Trust which is a non-profit charity. There are dozens of prizes in several categories to be won and the top prizes are £5,000. There’s a £20 registration fee for the adult competition (includes first submission) additional submissions (up to 3) are £20 each. Artists under 24 and over 14 pay £12 for registration and submissions.
Entries are accepted 30^th September 2018 and are closed 6^th January 2019
 
Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year
This highly prestigious art competition is unlike many others as it’s shown on Sky Arts. The series includes travelling to impressive locations to compete for the title of Landscape Artist of the Year. The winner of each competition gets the added bonus of a £10,000 commission for a British institution’s permanent collection and £500 of art materials from Cass Art. If you end up missing the deadline watch out for wild card places available until June.
The 2019 entry dates are to be announced, so keep an eye out on their web page here.
 

3. Join an Art Workshop

If entering art competitions aren’t for you, maybe build your skill and join some art workshops at some colleges or museums and who knows, in a few years’ time you could be entering and winning the art competitions.

Here are some workshops you can join at the Fashion and Textiles Museums:

Decorative Collage with Sarah Campbell
Saturday 25 August / 10.30am – 4.30pm
This is a great chance to create some decorative collages under the expert hand of Sarah Campbell. Participants will start by playing with techniques and will discuss how to consider shape, colour, form and motifs
 
Draw like a Designer / for Ages 12+
Wednesday 29 August / 11:30am or 2pm
This practical class teaches you a multitude of drawing tricks and design tips based on the Museum’s book How to Draw Like a Fashion Designer. This is especially helpful for those whom are considering going down a design route.
 

4. Get some interesting work experience

Work experience always looks good on your personal statement or CV, it looks even more impressive when you find more interesting places to work for which have some show some correlation to what you may want to pursue in university or as a career.

Here’s a website you can look at which will help you find some interesting work experience:

vInspired.com



This website is brilliant for finding interesting and exciting work experience placements. You can put into the filter what type of work experience you want to do as well as mention your own interest and then they will cater the results around that as well as some other factors such as location, work availability etc.
 

5. Go to Open Days

For those of you who are starting to think about universities or who are looking to relocate from their current university, then going to different university open days is one of the most productive things you could do in your day as the decisions you make about the place visit could potentially impact your future.

Here’s a good website you can look at which will help notify you when there are any upcoming open days:

WhatUni.com



This website is very helpful with the whole university process. You can look up the courses you may want to pursue and then it’ll will show you the different universities which offer those courses. Once you find some which you like you can book a slot for the next open day which they have.
 

6. Go to Museums

Museums are fun and exciting places to visit when you have some free time. There are so many different types of them and going to certain ones can really help to inspire you as well as build your character. They say that art can reflect the concerns of a time, therefore it’s wise to go to some and relearn history while also looking at some modern work and then reflect on life and society itself.
 
Here are some cool museums which you could visit:

The Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam is one of the biggest museums in Cambridge. It houses vast collections of antiquities from ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome, including exhibits of English and European pottery and glass, furniture, clocks, Chinese jades, and ceramics from Japan and Korea.
 
National History Museum
The Natural History Museum in London is one of the biggest and most well-known museums in England. It exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history, making any trip there not only exciting but also enlightening.
 
The V&A
The Victoria and Albert Museum also known as the V&A was founded in 1852 and was named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The museum is based in London and it is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.3 million objects.
 

7. Go to Festivals

Last but definitely not least, why not go to a festival? Festivals are a good way to relieve stress and just enjoy yourself with your friends, listening to some of your favourite artist.
Here are some websites which will show you some of the festivals you may want to go to:

• visitcambridge.org
• festivalsforall.com

And to save you some of the hassle here are some festivals coming up:
Green Meadows festival
Green Meadows Festival is a chill, family friendly festival during the day and the by the time it’s night, that’s when the main event begins for the older groups. The festival hosts a wide variety of performances, live music and DJs over multiple stages and areas, throughout the day, making it and energetic and active setting.
The festival is in Peterborough and it’s from the 10^th – 12^th August  
Ticket prices for adults start at £30
 
RiZE festival
The summer music is one of the top choices to replace Glastonbury as the biggest and best UK festival of 2018.  They have a big line-up including big talent such as Liam Gallagher, Rita Ora, Stereophonics, James Bay, Craig David, Bastille, Plan B, Miles Kane (NEW), Manic Street Preachers, Sean Paul, Rag 'N' Bone Man, and many more.
The festival is located at Hylands Park (Chelmsford) and it’s from the 17^th – 18^th August
Ticket prices start at £59.50
 
The Reading and Leeds festival
Both UK festivals have identical line-ups, meaning you only need to go to the one closest to you. The 2018 festival is likely to be in high demand as one of the biggest line-ups in the absence of Glastonbury. There’s going to be a mix of genres, a mix of artists and a mix of the biggest tunes to some newer and fresher tunes. The festival line up in includes: Kendrick Lamar, Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, Kings of Leon, Dua Lipa, Sum 41, Mike Shinoda (of Linkin Park), Wolf Alice, Courteeners, Skepta, Travis Scott, The Kooks, The Vaccines and many more.
The location is in the names of the festivals and the festivals are from the 24^th – 26^th August.
Ticket prices start at £69.50
 
That’s all the suggestions I have for you, for now. I really encourage everyone reading this to try to make the most of their summer holidays and if you’re stuck and don’t know what to do then you can always refer to this list.