Photo by Casey Brockbank
Dr Melanie Gray, the new Dean of the School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, said she was delighted to see how eager students have been to take advantage of the University of Roehampton’s Employability Week activities.
Recognising the importance of preparing students for the careers they want to pursue, the university has set up a series of free talks and workshops throughout the week of 23-27 October, which are all geared towards showing students what matters to potential employers and how they can break into their chosen field.
“We are really pleased with the uptake,” Gray said in an interview.
The new Dean, who joined the University of Roehampton this year, took time out of a busy day interacting with students, guest speakers and faculty members, to offer her thoughts about how the week’s activities were going. The sessions are designed to provide students with unique and valuable experiences as they start to explore career possibilities.
“It’s about building skills, experiences and confidence so that all our students at Roehampton have really good opportunities and secure the jobs they want to.”
Over the course of this week, students can attend talks led by professionals in a variety of industries. The sessions give students the chance to learn what a given job entails and what kind of skills and experience are necessary for that line of work.
“The university’s strategy is all about inclusive ambition, and that is very much about ensuring that all the students that we welcome here achieve absolutely what they’re capable of,” Gray said. “Employability Week is at the core heart of what Roehampton is about.”
According to Dr Gray, Roehampton’s main aims with Employability Week are to “give something extra to students, to enhance, on top of their normal learning experience, those opportunities that will lead to a greater choice of jobs going forward; and to make students more confident in the job market”.
Employability Week gives students of all levels a wide range of opportunities to learn about different issues related to employability, such as CV building and social media profiling.
Gray said it was vital that the university offered opportunities such as this. “It is important that we have a stand-out week like this on top of the curriculum, and we will have another one in the spring.”
By Casey Brockbank, UR Journalism student