Well I have made it to my final year now and it's started off well with me being contacted on linkedin out of the blue about a flight operations assistant job. As for B1 licence a window does seem to be opening with a potential visit to an airport and maintenance hangar after being invited to talk about careers! It seems that my efforts with the Blog, LinkedIn and PPRuNe are starting to pay off this year! I am not ruling out graduate opportunities yet, I'm just a bit wary of them, so I will be making enquiries into those avenues.
Just want to say thanks for the advice and help I've got off here as it's been part of the reason I have kept faith in a B1 career path rather than giving up at the first signs of me taking the wrong route. I'm leaving options open however, in terms of looking into Airline/Airport Operations jobs too as they are another career path that interests me, but I definitely haven't given up on the B1 route and fully intend to apply to Monarch at BHX depending on any other jobs offers I find.
So once again thank you for the help! I have found that since posting this I have had various people contact me on LinkedIn and on here asking for my help on what I have found out. Including people from other countries and I have been able to help point them in the right directions so even if I don't go into a B1 career path I now know a lot more on how it all works and have a greater knowledge of airline structure than I would have done otherwise, plus some great work experience to boost my CV!