An update from Amber

Hi everyone,

I just thought I’d let you know how James and I are progressing with the module. It’s scary to think that we now have less than 5 weeks left of our internship until Verity enters the graduate job market; James and I recommence our studies; and Charlotte gets stuck into her PhD and Research Assistantship post.

So, what have we been up to recently? Last week, James and I spent the vast majority of our time working on the module’s Blackboard site. In case you didn’t know, Blackboard is a web based online learning platform which many lecturers use to upload resources relevant to the module you are studying. At first, designing an entire Blackboard site that will be used by hundreds of first-years over the course of the next academic year seemed like a daunting task, as neither James nor I had ever used Blackboard as instructors, only as students, but in actual fact it was pretty straightforward. Although we haven’t had the opportunity to upload absolutely everything to the Blackboard site and it’s not yet finished, it’s great to see the module taking shape!

As James mentioned in his last post, on Wednesday 6^th August we had the opportunity to meet with Career Destinations to discuss the progress of the lecture content. Although Career Destinations’ initial developments were great, James and I were really eager to implement several of the customisation options bought up during our meetings with the Employability tutors. As a result, James and I decided to brainstorm several ideas of ways in which the module could focus on the student experience and emphasise why students should start thinking about developing their employability skills sooner rather than later. At first, we were a bit apprehensive about presenting our proposals for the new lecture content to Career Destinations as we were unsure about how they would receive our ideas. Fortunately, they were extremely enthusiastic about what we presented and couldn’t agree more with what we had to say. Based on our feedback, Career Destinations are looking to incorporate our proposed customisation options and – most importantly – focus on the students themselves! We can’t wait to see what they come up with!

So I think that’s about it from me for now. Tune in next week to hear all about how the launch of the VIP Alumni scheme is coming along as well as any recent module developments!