‘Mission Employable’: Creating a student-led employability strategy for the Faculty of Humanities, University of Southampton

Abstract

This paper is the case study of a project undertaken over summer 2014 by Dr Eleanor Quince (Director of Employability) and student interns Charlotte Medland, Verity Smith, Amber Dudley and James Tribe at the University of Southampton in the Faculty of Humanities. The Faculty hosts over 3,000 students studying single or combined degrees across seven disciplines: Archaeology, English, Film, History, Modern Languages, Music and Philosophy. Our internship remit was to create and launch a new student-led employability strategy for the Faculty of Humanities. The strategy needed to be both engaging and flexible, with tailored options for each of the seven disciplines.

Best Practices of Engineering Training in World Leading Universities

“…Рассмотрим примеры проактивной модернизации научно-образовательной инфраструктуры университетов. Университет Саутгемптона имее т самый мощн ый су перкомпьютер в Великобритании и позиционирует возможности обучения по соответствующим образовательным программам 20 , а также возможности межуниверситетского взаимодействия в проведении научных исследований [15]. Лондонский городской университет построил для всех студентов, приобретающих инженерные специальности, учебную научную мегалабораторию.…”

“…Среди нововведений предложена такая опция, как гибкая программа бакалавриата. Данная опция подразумевает, что студент может персонализировать свою программу обучения, выбрав дополнительный междисциплинарный модуль, развивая свои умения от бизнес-планирования до знаний о жизни в космосе [20].…”

Digital Media to ‘Engage the Disengaged’: Reaching out to Humanities Students at the University of Southampton

“…Our activity has required extensive student participation and leadership, and partnership working quickly led to the realisation that social media was an under-utilised but effective communication channel between the Faculty and its students. Student-staff collaboration in summer 2014 successfully established a strong social media presence, using Facebook, Twitter and (more recently) Instagram (Medland et al, 2015). This collaboration, in its third year and now well-established, has enabled us to enter into frank dialogue regarding what will and will not engage the student body.…”

“…Communicating effectively with such cohorts can be challenging; actively engaging them in co-or extra-curricular activity is even harder. For Humanities students at a STEM-led institution (Southampton is 65% STEM), there is a double barrier: the added belief that the support on offer is not for them, but for science students (Medland et al, 2015). The preliminary work to decide on a new employability strategy for Humanities at Southampton, which led to the launch of Mission Employable, used data collected at events to show that just eighty-seven students from the Faculty had engaged in careers-related activity across the academic year 2012/13.…”