We have been sharing some of the great ways that we have stayed connected during the pandemic and adapted to online and blended learning with innovative solutions. We have many more of your stories to share, but if you haven't shared your story with us yet, then please get in touch with Internal Communications.
Employability and Careers Services
Over the past year, our Employability and Careers Services team have developed innovative ways to deliver virtual careers fairs and employment skills workshops, so that students can continue to be connected with potential employers.
The Greenwich Employability Passport helps build career skills to prepare graduates for the workplace and the Careers Hub provides online support with CVs, job applications, internship opportunities, mentoring, graduate jobs, mock interviews and more.
Mentoring
With the uncertain environment, professional skills development programmes, like mentoring, are becoming more important than ever. Many of our dedicated mentoring programmes have continued to support students during the pandemic, with our Business School Employability Office pairing over 400 successful mentor/mentees in 2020, and our SPARK mentoring for FES students continuing virtually.
Our Alumni and Development team launched ASK Alumni for all students, providing a community for alumni and students to connect, broaden professional networks and seek/offer career guidance through one-to-one interactions and e-mentoring.
Enterprise Challenge
Over 100 students applied to take part in this year’s Generator Enterprise Challenge, with the top 10 budding entrepreneurs selected to take part in the live finals event online, pitching their ideas to a panel of external entrepreneurs.
Generator aims to inspire and encourage students and graduates with new ideas. The centre helps students and graduates to develop entrepreneurial skills, start new ventures, and connect with experts via one-to-one appointments, funding competitions and events.
Students as staff
We employed some of our recent graduates as Graduate Teaching Demonstrators to support the move to blended learning and assist teaching staff. This has been particularly successful in not only assisting staff with managing multiple technologies, but also in providing an additional point of contact and support for students.
Our Student Ambassador programme also continues to employ students in various roles across the university, providing flexible work opportunities and developing their experience in a professional work environment.
At our Charlton partnership day three students were involved in match-day roles - as the club announcer and in the commentary team. It is great to see that our partners continue to provide work experience opportunities for students, despite the challenges of the pandemic.
Employability support in our Faculties
We have held individual Programme Leader meetings with final year students in the Faculty of Business for profile checking, career planning, financial support (with the help of Aspire Greenwich) and reference support for further education.
Our staff in the Business School Employability Office have been taking part in the Employ Autism programme as part of the pioneering partnership with Santander Universities called ’Ambitious about Autism’. The programme trains our career staff to support our autistic students and employers across the country, to offer paid work experience placements to autistic students and graduates.
The two new student leaders of the Systems Management and Strategy (SMS) Student Learning Community in Business are leading two projects to bring value to their fellow entrepreneurial students. They are creating a consultancy portfolio where students would act as a free clinic for small Greenwich enterprises/start-ups; and organising a series of workshops for students who are interested in pursuing the entrepreneurship pathway.
The new module Psychology and Graduate Career Development in the Faculty of Education, Health and Human Sciences has been designed to support students during the transition from study to work. It equips students with psychological frameworks to understand graduate employability and graduate-level work. It also provides students with a range of practical skills, and knowledge of the psychology underpinning them, to maximise their chances of employment.
In the Faculty of Engineering and Science, we arranged for our Chemistry part-time apprenticeship students to undertake intensive lab sessions at their place of work, as they were unable to travel to campus. We have also prepared experiment equipment for our part-time Biology students to use, so that they can conduct experiments in their workplaces when it is safe for them to return.
Our final year Design students in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences of were supported with virtual mentoring and assistance from Greenwich alumni to prepare their final design portfolios. These online portfolio ‘surgeries’ brought industry colleagues together with students, to provide real-time critique that would normally occur in a studio face-to-face. Students also gained insights into how they could secure graduate work during the pandemic and the subsequent recovery phase.
The Creative Industries Employability Mentorship in the School of Design is supporting students with regular one-to-one creative industries mentorship sessions to empower students, and help to prepare them for the creative industries in a post-pandemic environment.
Thank you to everyone who's shared their stories, it's great to hear - and to share - how our university community has continued to prepare our students for their future careers.
It's definitely making us #ProudToBeGre
If you have a story to share please get in touch with Internal Communications.
