VIP Alumni Scheme – Recent Developments
Hello everyone,
As I’m sure you have probably guessed, the past few weeks have been so busy: meetings with the Employability tutors from the 7 departments within the Faculty of Humanities; thinking about possible module content; working on the Southampton Opportunity project; and a whole range of other exciting initiatives. It’s strange to think that we are nearly half way through our internship and we have already achieved so much in such a short amount of time. However what I really want to talk to you about today is the VIP Alumni scheme.
What is the VIP Alumni scheme? And how is it related to our Employability module? Well, when Eleanor set about reforming the Employability agenda within the Faculty of Humanities, she thought it would be an excellent idea to get alumni more involved to raise students’ awareness of employability. In fact, back in 2011, Eleanor was funded by the Higher Education Academy to carry out a research project titled “Promoting employability: how to get the most from your alumni”. As a result of her project, Eleanor concluded that when working with alumni, it is important that you choose your alumni carefully as some people are not natural communicators irrespective of how successful their career has been. Furthermore, it is fundamental that alumni come from all different backgrounds since students need an increasingly awareness of the various options available which differ from the norm.
The aim of the scheme is to increase alumni’s involvement in University life; to raise current students’ awareness of possible career paths; to motivate current students to start thinking about their careers sooner rather than later; and to provide students with valuable networking opportunities. So that students can easily relate to members of the VIP Alumni scheme, we are looking to select alumni who have graduated in the last 5 to 10 years and have already established a successful career. If you yourself would like to get involved or know of anyone who would be an ideal candidate, please do get in touch with either myself (A.Dudley@soton.ac.uk) or Dr Eleanor Quince (E.J.Quince@soton.ac.uk).
One of the main issues of establishing a VIP Alumni scheme is that it can be quite difficult to get in contact with Alumni as many of them are located all over the world and it’s difficult to know who would be suitable for this scheme. Fortunately, we’ve been in contact with teaching staff within the Faculty of Humanities who have given us a few recommendations and at the end of August, I will be visiting the Alumni office to search their database. Plus, we’ve also set up LinkedIn groups for Alumni. If you want to join one of the groups, see the links below:
ML Alumni – http://uk.linkedin.com/groups?gid=7418296
Archaeology Alumni – http://uk.linkedin.com/groups?gid=8146450
English Alumni – http://uk.linkedin.com/groups?gid=8144928
Film Alumni – http://uk.linkedin.com/groups?gid=8147217
History Alumni – http://uk.linkedin.com/groups?gid=8145722
Music Alumni – http://uk.linkedin.com/groups?gid=8146428
Philosophy Alumni – http://uk.linkedin.com/groups?gid=8144918
I think that’s all from me for now. Log in tomorrow to find out more from another member of ‘Mission Employable’!