Right now many students will be deep into the summer holidays, kicking back, catching up with friends and generally enjoying some downtime. But not third-year business management and marketing student Natalie Tranova, 22, as she is about to start an internship at Service Robotics, a firm based at Future Space in UWE Bristol’s University Enterprise Zone.
Tranova has just completed a placement with the university employer engagement team, helping organise careers fairs and working on an international talent scheme. “The experience really showed me what I wanted to focus on after graduating,” says Tranova. “I realised I really love the creative side of the marketing process and it also gave me a really good insight into how an office works.”
The full-time, paid, eight-week internship will be home-based, with regular access to the office – representing just one of the many ways that UWE Bristol helps its students to prepare for the world of work. Tranova hopes she will be able to learn more about product launches and marketing. “Standards are really high in the marketing industry,” she says. “And opportunities like this will really help give me the edge.”
UWE Bristol’s University Enterprise Zone provides space and opportunities for startups, fast-growth businesses, graduate entrepreneurs and cooperative research in the high-tech, robotics, digital and health-tech sectors. The UWE Bristol enterprise skills team works closely with students who want to go down the self-employed route. Activities offered include pitchathons, “be your own boss” and “your future in freelancing” workshops, business advice clinics and mentoring.
“We were able to offer 86 students £76,850 worth of funding across five competitions throughout [last] year,” says UWE Bristol enterprise skills adviser Gabi Cox.
And the skills developed, she says, will remain with the students regardless of whether they go on to be self-employed.
UWE Bristol Students’ Union has around 160 societies and sport clubs, from DJing to anime, via knitting and roleplaying, with an annual Society Awards Ball to reward their achievements. This year the awards were announced live on Instagram.
Philosophy student Evan Botwood, 22, was midway through a placement year as vice president of the union responsible for societies, sustainability and other key areas when lockdown started. But as the coronavirus pandemic sent his vice-president placement year online, Botwood had to use his skills to ensure students were being affected as little as possible by the transition online, working out new wellbeing policies and making sure student concerns were heard.
Nia Crouch is UWE Bristol’s project development manager and volunteering team leader. She and her colleagues work closely with a range of national and local companies and charities to find suitable opportunities for the university’s 30,000 students. “Our focus is on really tailoring opportunities to best suit students in areas they want to progress in their career,” she says.
For many students, volunteering is a great way to get essential career skills without the commitment to the hours of a part-time job. The university is a member of Voscur, the support and development agency for Bristol’s voluntary, community and social enterprise sector. “It’s important for us to know we’re delivering for the city’s needs as well as the students,” says Crouch.
UWE Bristol prides itself on its range of extracurricular offerings, and its careers and enterprise teams were determined that Covid-19 wouldn’t pose too much of a disruption, moving everything campus-based to online, where possible. During lockdown, UWE Bristol students have been stepping up in ways they may not have previously imagined. “We’ve had business students helping charities with their strategies and graphic design students helping with rapidly changing messaging,” says Crouch.
While the university has had to pull back on many of its usual projects, such as its programme for schools, it has been encouraging students to sign up to Bristol’s NHS Volunteer Responders and other opportunities via the Can Do Bristol website, which showcases volunteering vacancies locally. “While we’ve moved away from physical volunteering at the moment, some of the telephone befriending and mentoring has stepped up and this has been really good for the shielding students too,” says Crouch.
Once students are in the volunteering pipeline, she says, UWE Bristol then starts to signpost to other internship programmes and mentoring. During this process, some students change path entirely. “We had one psychology student who volunteered because they missed reading to their siblings,” says Crouch. “They ended up deciding they wanted to train as a special educational needs coordinator.”
One UWE Bristol graphic design student is building his own company, carving out a position doing charity design work and using volunteering as a great tool for research and portfolio building – doing good in the process. While for others such as Botwood, hosting a re-freshers fair – January’s intake of international and nursing students – not only raised £1,500 for Bristol-based homeless charity, One25, but also added event planning to his CV.
All these extracurricular initiatives and university-run internships help produce well-rounded students with direction and purpose. “Testing the water like this helps channel thoughts, directs students to a clearer path and contributes to a richer student experience,” says Ian Staite, careers and inclusivity external relations project team leader. “[They are] a great way to open up networks and make contacts that lead on to other opportunities.”
