Hello from Charlotte!

Hello everyone,

 

My name is Charlotte Medland and I am a third-year PhD candidate in Modern Languages here at the University of Southampton. During my time in postgraduate study, I have been fortunate enough to teach some of the Humanities undergraduate students, and have been hugely impressed by their hard work, and motivation. However, with the increasingly competitive job market and the decline of temporary work placements, I saw some really talented people struggle to get the experience to help launch their graduate career. UK higher education institutions are becoming increasingly aware of the challenges facing their students, and many are now looking to help their students create their own employability opportunities. For this reason I was thrilled when Dr Eleanor Quince gave me the opportunity to contribute to the ‘Mission Employable’ initiative here at Southampton. Eleanor is directing this project, which aims not only to give Humanities students a greater awareness of the transferable skills they acquire over the course their degree programmes, but also to give them the opportunities to develop these skills within extra-curricular and placement settings, so that they have the experience to pursue the career of their choice on graduation.

What is so unusual about the way that we are going about this at Southampton is that the project is being led by the students! Amber, James, Verity and I are so excited to be actively involved in such an important and worthwhile initiative, and we can’t wait to see how the students embrace the Employability module, the Peer Mentoring Scheme, and all the other opportunities once the project is launched in the autumn.

We are especially keen to have as much input from the students and staff in the Faculty of Humanities as possible, as well as more widely sharing both successful employability opportunities and the ways in which these can be accredited to the advantage of students. We are keen to hear from anyone who has an initiative that they think may be beneficial to our students, whether this is currently based elsewhere at the University of Southampton or at another higher education institution in the UK (or even abroad – the world is your oyster!). To help us reach as many people as possible, I have created a Twitter account for ‘Mission Employable’ that can be found @HumsEmployable. We welcome any and every idea, so please get in touch with us if you have anything you’d like to contribute, or even just to say hello!

When I started this internship I was given the focus of ‘Group Activity’. This may initially seem an unusual link to Employability, but that is exactly the sort of thinking we want to dispel! Southampton Humanities students are involved in many activities – both within and outside their degree courses – that involve working with others. This may be as part of an academic or extra-curricular society committee, as a community volunteer, and Open Day helper, or a member of an outreach project. As well as these activities, the University of Southampton offers many opportunities for its students to get involved in local, national, and international events that give their students the possibility to develop their employability skills at the same time as making new connections, applying the knowledge they have learnt through their degrees, and maybe even win a prize! My role involves gathering together all of these opportunities so that they can be made as visible as possible to the students, and researching current employability opportunities at other UK universities to find best practice and work out how this might be applied at Southampton. My findings so far have demonstrated how vital employability initiatives are to the higher education experience nowadays, and I am really looking forward to sharing my progress with you over the coming weeks as the project progresses. In my next post I will tell you all about the team’s experience with the Southampton Opportunities Project (Intrigued?! You will be!), but in the meantime if you want to know more about the project, have a look at my colleagues’ posts and get in touch!

 

Charlotte