strathclyde university annual achievement report

ANNUAL REPORT 2014-15

University of [email protected]

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 3

HIGHLIGHTS 4

SCHOOLS EVENTS 5

CAMPUS EVENTS 6

ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES 10

COMMITTEE STEWARDSHIP 11

COMMITTEE PROFILES 12

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 17

University of Strathclyde

University of Strathclyde"3

INTRODUCTION

It is my pleasure to introduce this year’s Annual Report on the activities and achievements of Bright Futures society at Strathclyde University.

For a society, that has previously won ‘Bright Futures Society of the Year 2013-14’ and ‘Strathclyde Society of the Year 2013-14’ awards, our team needed to not only keep at least the same level of events and attendance, but to think out of the box, be innovative and to help students explore their best options post education.

These ambitions are widely shared by every member of the Bright Futures Strathclyde team and it led to an exciting year in 2014/15. Never before have we had so many projects during the year, our attendance numbers skyrocketed and we built up strong relationships with students, other university societies, corporate employers and even introduced Bright Futures to new schools.

As a one of the Presidents, I have been able to improve my leadership and communications skills and met many inspiring and influential people. It is a delight to work with Bright Futures and I am looking forward to another upcoming successful year!

Julius Matuzevicius

President

Bright Futures Strathclyde


HIGHLIGHTS

Since the early beginning of the new academic year, we have made significant progress towards our goal of becoming a leading and well known brand throughout university, that connects students with a wide range of employers and helps them improve their employability skills.

One of the biggest achievements of 2014-15, is that Bright Futures Strathclyde is now able to successfully run events with solid attendances even without the presence of corporate employers. We have also created new and innovative events, such as ‘Pathway to HR and Management’, ‘Psychometric Success: Tackling the Tests!’ and ‘Creating Connections - The Art of Networking’ and the Rolls-Royce CV Competition with the winners gaining an exclusive tour to one of the RR jet engine turbine blade production facilities.

Part of our success is thanks to the relationships we have developed and sustained with corporate employers, Strathclyde Careers Service and other societies. We have an extremely close relationship with Rolls-Royce, whose representatives were willing and enthusiastic enough to participate in and occasionally lead 5 of our events. Collaboration with 4 different societies (Society of Petroleum Engineers, Glasgow Bright futures, Strathclyde Chemical Engineering Society and Naval Architecture Society) was also a key to high attendance numbers. Year 2014-15 in numbers:

2013-14 2014-15 Growth

Attendance 700 1,180 68%

Number of Events 9 13 44%

Facebook Likes 400 1,106 177%


Schools Events ‘Day on Campus with Bishopbriggs Academy’

In the beginning of June 2014, 150 school pupils from Bishopbriggs Academy came onto campus to see what the university life is like. We ran a couple of business workshops, involving organisation and marketing plans for ‘Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2014’. Winners were selected by the committee and received prizes. Bishopbriggs Academy has officially established a Bright Futures society and the general feedback from both students and teachers was great.

‘Soft Skills Development’

The event involved 24 Eastwood High School students on 14 of December, who were not necessarily thinking about going to university, and the day focused on developing students’ soft skills which are necessary to perform well at university. The day was run in the style of an assessment centre group activity, with students given a summary of an incident on an oil platform, and then tasked with interviewing a manager to use all this information to create a poster and press release. Feedback from students was fantastic and they were really keen for us to return.

St. Ninian’s High School

Our committee are currently in the process of arranging another school event with a brand new institution. St. Ninian's High School in Kirkintilloch are keen for us to run a Leadership workshop and they have also expressed a strong interest in forming their own society. Mark, VP of Business and Humanities, is currently liaising with the school to arrange a date for June when we will run the workshop. During this event we will also discuss the opportunity for students to join the school Bright Futures committee.


Campus Events

‘How to get the best Graduate Job’ Date - 2 October Students attended - 150

We yet again continued Strathclyde’s tradition of having Simon Reichwald on campus to kick-start our year. The event managed to reach 150 attendees, growing our turnout again year on year. This event was brilliant for new students to not only become more employable as a result of Simon’s advice, but also as a way to find out more about Bright Futures Strathclyde.

‘STEM Networking Event’ Date - 8 October Students attended - 300 Employers - Rolls-Royce, Shell, Atkins, Wood Group, Barrat Plc and PwC.

Following on from the success of this event last year it was imperative that we had another big attendance so that it could be established within the engineering faculty as a regular and useful event. This was another great opportunity for STEM students to network and discover the opportunities that some of the biggest names in the field have.

“It was well attended by students that asked pertinent questions and were enthusiastic about pursuing careers in Engineering” - Gregor Beattie, Rolls Royce.


‘CV Competition’ Date - 26 October Students attended - 150 Employers - Rolls-Royce

This event was a huge success, with over 150 students sending in their CVs to be looked through by Rolls-Royce. The winners were invited to an exclusive tour of one of the RR jet engine turbine blade production facilities and all those who entered were given the opportunity to come and meet Rolls-Royce on campus in a mass-feedback session.

‘Pathway to HR and Management’ Date - 28 October Students attended - 50 Employers - Rolls-Royce

Pathway to HR and Management was one of our new innovative events, which had never been done before. The Rolls-Royce HR team provided insights to students on what skills global organisations expect from their future HR leaders.

“I was very impressed with the level of professionalism and how well was the event organised” - Mhairi McPhee, Rolls-Royce.

‘CV Skills Session’ Date - 10 November Students attended - 160 Employers - Rolls-Royce

Following on from our CV competition, this event provided essential skills and advice around how to create a dynamic CV which stands out from the crowd. Everyone who participated in the competition was able to attend and we opened it up to everyone who was interested.


‘How to Succeed at an Assessment Centre’ Date - 17 November Students attended - 35 Employers - HSBC

Run with HSBC, this event was a real eye-opener to the Assessment Centre process and gave students the opportunity to simulate what a real assessment day would look like and participate in a mock team exercise. The company were very pleased at the turnout and quality of students attending.

‘Internship Speed Networking’ Date - 25 November Students attended - 40 Employers - Lloyds Banking Group, PwC, HSBC, Sellafield Ltd and Rolls-Royce.

This event gave students the chance to meet company representatives face to face and ask them all of the questions they had regarding how to secure internships and work placements. This was a totally new event for us to run and we took the idea from the training conference. The timing of this event was perfect as applications for these

programmes were in full swing and we have heard many instances of bright futures members being able to secure internships in part from the advice they received during this event.

‘How to use LinkedIn to your advantage’ Date - 17 February Students attended - 20

We ran this event in conjunction with the Student Union and gave students an opportunity to discover how to make their LinkedIn profile stand out from the crowd. This event has also helped us to attract a lot of new members as it was run as part of a STAR Skills volunteer training initiative. We’d like to thank Simon Reichwald for his advice on the content and the National team for the LinkedIn Webinar which also helped us to deliver the event.


‘Psychometric Success: Tackling the Tests!’ (x2) Date - 2 February and 3 March Students attended - 30 and 20

This was yet another brand new event this year. Psychometric tests are one of the most feared part of the recruitment process and we saw an opportunity to create an event to assist our members with tackling these tests.

Our workshop on psychometric tests was extremely successful. We achieved a fantastic attendance level without the investment of corporate employers. We were even asked to deliver the same workshop on campus again. An extremely interactive Q&A session followed the presentation, which involved Bright Futures representatives, the Strathclyde Careers Service and the Director of a Business Psychology Unit.

The feedback from students was brilliant, our event has been published in Ezine edition for March and we definitely see this event happening again in the future!

‘Creating Connections - The Art of Networking’ Date - 23 March Expected student attendance - 30

Our last event of the year, which we expect to deliver on 23 March to 20-30 students.

The 45 minute workshop will cover all important aspects of networking, such as elevator pitch, tips for remembering names, networking goals and interesting questions to ask. Students will also have the opportunity to network with fellow colleagues after the presentation.


Additional Activities Interview Posters

We have continued to deliver information to students from a wide variety of sources through our interview posters. The first of these was with Rolls-Royce and was well received by over 950 students on our Facebook page. We are also planning to release interviews with Strathclyde University alumni and past Bright Futures committee members in order to help our members gain a better understanding what the life after university is like and to optimise the social media experience we can deliver.

STAR Skills

In the second half of the year we have once again helped to deliver a LinkedIn seminar as part of STAR skills training for volunteers of the Strathclyde University students. This was done at the request of Claire Sally, Vice-President of Activities and Development for Strathclyde. All of our committee will be receiving certificates from the student union for the volunteer work that we have done as part of Bright Futures throughout the year and this accolade will help to boost their employability.

“The LinkedIn session that Bright Futures ran for the STAR Skills workshops at USSA was highly beneficial to the attendees. It was very specific to students and the attributes needed on their profile for employment after university. The presenters were very approachable and answered all questions to a significant standard. I personally thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and received only positive feedback from other attendees” - Claire Sally, VPAD Strathclyde.

Engagement with National Network

We have managed to engage with the Bright Futures network as a whole in a number of ways. Firstly, by having representatives at every single national event, we have been able to meet with other societies and the national team face to face and share ideas on how to develop and create high quality events.

We have also done this through directly helping other societies when they have reached out to us, offering insight and practical advice on the organisation of events we have done before. Publishing articles in the Hired Ezine is another method of knowledge sharing we have been able to facilitate.

By running excellent schools’ events, we were able to encourage a new Bright Futures society to form in Eastwood High School, Glasgow.


Social Media

Our social media presence has dramatically increased this year from 400 Facebook likes to 1,106 to date. This was much higher than our initial target of 700 for the year and has enabled us to become one of the most well connected societies on campus. This strong Facebook presence has spread our brand in an effective way as can been seen by the fact that we reach an average of 800 people per post, letting them know about our upcoming events and activities.

In developing our Twitter account, we have found it was not as effective for delivering information as we thought it would be. Instead, we put emphasis on creating a strong, active and more employability related Facebook page, which would deliver useful information on more than just our events.

Committee Stewardship Growth and Development

With only two members returning from last year, we have done well to recruit and retain committee which now numbers 13. This is in part down to the efforts of last year’s presidents Tom Brawley and Chris Milborrow, who insured there would be a steady stream of new committee members. First semester president Tom Brawley has also done a great job of attracting top talent through engaging enthusiastic members at our events.

We have insured that a diverse range of committee members will return next year and that we will have a strong representation across different faculties and year groups, which will provide a great mixture of knowledge and skills in working towards our shared goals.

Finances

As in previous years Bright Futures Strathclyde has been run on a zero budget and no investors have been charged.


Committee Profiles Our committee has been run similarly to last year, with no assigned roles apart from the Presidents and Vice-Presidents positions. This allows our committee members to work in areas their skills match up to and typically takes the form of one committee member leading an event from start to finish with others supporting where needed.

Tom Brawley - President (May 2013 - January 2015) Studying - (MEng) Chemical Engineering Graduating - 2015

"Being a part of Bright Futures Strathclyde has been one of the most enjoyable but also most challenging experiences whilst at university. It has been a pleasure to work with such a fantastic team and deliver on record goals this year, only building on the success of winning society of the year. Personally I have no doubt the skills learned over the past three and a half years on the committee helped me secure my internship at BP last summer, and looking to the future these skills will help me make the most of the opportunity at Shell, where I am to start my career as a process engineer in the Netherlands later this year.”

Youssef Hounat - Joint President Studying - BA (Honours) Accounting & Finance Graduating - 2016

“I joined the Bright Futures committee this year having already been a president of a smaller course related society and I’ve really enjoyed being able to work with a much larger variety of companies as well as other motivated and talented students from different degree disciplines. As the Vice-President of STEM, I was able to learn a great deal about a whole new sector and engage with companies that I had no previous knowledge of. The training and support provided by the national team has been outstanding and I have been able to develop and grow in terms of my leadership and organisational skills. I was offered 2 different internships from Big 4 firms and have secured a place on the Global Student Experience in EY where I will be working in the USA and London this summer”.


Mark O’Neill - VP of Business and Humanities Studying - BA (Honours) Marketing & Business Enterprise Graduating - 2015

“I have thoroughly enjoyed my role as Vice-President at Strathclyde having only joined the committee last August. I have been able to use and develop many skills during my time with the society. I have been able to utilise my time management skills which have allowed me to balance my final year of university and a part time job alongside all of my extra curricular activities. I have been able to apply all of my knowledge of networking and psychometric testing to produce two brand new events which have been run this semester. I have learned that, regardless of what stage students are at, they are always appreciative of the work we do at Bright Futures and that, in itself, makes everything we work for worthwhile! After graduation I will be working in the Transformation division of Capita as an Analyst from September 2015”.

Claire Johnstone - VP of STEM Studying - (MEng) Chemical Engineering Graduating - 2016

“I joined bright futures last summer and immediately began organising a speed networking event specifically for students looking for internships and placements. I used the sponsor contacts and got 5 companies across several industry sectors to get involved and the feedback from both companies and students was very positive. also ran a schools event at my old high school where the society delivered a soft skills workshop on the vital skills needed for applying to university. The pupils were hand selected by the school and we're identified as having the potential to attend university but need help to develop their applications. I feel I have developed my leadership and professionalism through my position in the bright futures committee and hope to gain a summer placement for chemical engineering in the energy sector”.


Kristin Simonova Studying - BA (Honours) Management Science Graduating - 2016

“I have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of a fantastic team and I'm looking forward to our next year. The contact with all Bright Futures sponsors and their invaluable advice has increased my confidence and knowledge of the graduate market which I hope to use in the organisation of future events. I have secured a placement project with Aerial Ltd app developers in Scotland where I will be working on developing a holistic marketing strategy for their upcoming products.”

Carly Poesch Studying - MSc International Marketing Graduating - 2015

“Being involved in the BF committee has enabled me to gain vital information about the UK job market (as I am an international student) that has helped me in all aspects of job searching and the application process. I have been able to sharpen as well as gain new leadership and teamwork skills through participating and attending meetings, events, and seminars.”

Ciara Diamond Studying - BA (Honours) Marketing Graduating - 2015

“I have thoroughly enjoyed being an active committee member for Bright Futures at Strathclyde this year. Through Bright Futures I have had the opportunity to liaise with employees and increase my employability skills. I highly value the experiences that Bright Futures has provided me with and the transferable skills that I have developed through assisting to organise events. As a final year business student I carried out a summer internship last year with Enterprise Rent a Car and from this I have been offered a position on their graduate scheme.”


Debora Dyankova Studying - BA (Honours) Finance & Economics Graduating - 2016

“I joined the Strathclyde Bright Futures Committee in September 2014 through LinkedIn. I was captured by the idea of the society namely enabling students to find out first-hand about all the different industries' opportunities and the best way for a person to take his or her first step on the career-ladder. Bright Futures helped me a lot to understand more clearly, what an employer expects from a young candidate. I am sure that the knowledge and the experience that I have gained by participating in Bright Futures will be of crucial importance in my development as a professional.”

Gideon Kingsley Studying - BA (Honours) Accounting & Finance Graduating - 2016

“I have enjoyed the diverse nature of working on the Bright Futures committee as I have been able to develop leadership and team working skills through the provision of events and supporting other committee members in creating their events. Working on the committee has helped me to secure an internship with EY this summer.”


New Committee Members

Ashleigh Newlands Studying - (MEng) Chemical Engineering Graduating - 2017

Ashleigh is a highly motivated and dedicated student who will bring excellent organisational and interpersonal skills to the committee. She has already been instrumental in the delivery and promotion in the Eastwood High School’s event and we look forward to working with her next year.

Tara Nicholl Studying - (MEng) Chemical Engineering Graduating - 2017

Tara has joined the committee recently and has already shown an aptitude for creativity and leadership. She is incredibly enthusiastic and will be pivotal in driving the committee to achieving even greater success next year.

Christine Hanganu Studying - BA (Honours) Entrepreneurship Graduating - 2016

Christine has worked in a number of different roles promoting various companies and was also a member of European Youth Parliament. She will use this experience and the skills she has learnt to deliver innovative and effective solutions to the problems faced by the committee throughout next year.


Acknowledgements The Strathclyde Bright Futures committee would like to thank Simon, Vanessa, Claire and Toby for their continued support and assistance in delivering our events. Indeed without the help of the entire national team and our fellow societies we would not have been able to achieve even a fraction of the results you can see in the above report.

We would also like to extend our gratitude towards the University of Strathclyde Students Association and the Careers Service for providing us with the venues and resources as well as their time and effort in ensuring the success of our society.

Finally we would like to recognise the corporate investors we were fortunate enough to work with for their input and patience. Without these connections the content of our events would not be of as high standard and we would struggle to attract the attendance that we do.

Bright Futures Strathclyde Committee 2014-15

Email: [email protected]

facebook.com/pages/Bright-Futures-Strathclyde/417557491678213

'Bright Futures is more than just a student society; it’s your pathway to success.’

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strathclyde university annual achievement report

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