Activities supported by Student Futures

Advice and Guidance

All Student Futures Careers Advisers have a professional qualification in Careers Education, Advice and Guidance. To complement this training, Careers Advisers and some Project Officers are currently completing Advance HE Associate Fellowship via the Cardiff University Education Fellowship Programme. Many of our Careers Advisers and other team members have experience of designing and teaching curricular provision, gained at both Cardiff and other institutions.

The College Business Partners work with the Careers Advisers to develop Employability and Enterprise content for the curriculum. This can be discipline-specific and tailored to meet specific learning outcomes. It can be through a discrete module or integrated into existing modules.

Our aim in teaching is to combine the following elements:

• Advice and guidance on relevant career theories, as well as pathways linked to different degrees.
• Interactive, inclusive and reflective activities that encourage students to feel more confident in exploring the future possibilities for their career.
• Real-world examples, including industry and alumni speakers or simulated, problem-based activities, as well as practical tools such as practising interview technique and CV-building.
• Opportunities to analyse skills, strengths and attributes including identifying the development of the University’s graduate attributes.
• Careers Advisers can submit teaching plans and materials for review in advance, and their input is reviewed can a team-based peer review system and also via module evaluation.

College Business Partners can work alongside academic colleagues and Careers Advisers to design both formative and summative assessments. We have developed relevant assessment criteria and can undertake training sessions with academic staff to facilitate employability-related assessments.

The Student Futures Enterprise and Start-up team focuses on ensuring that the University’s strategic commitments to student enterprise are delivered through the prioritisation of four streams of activity:

INSPIRE Programme

Student Futures will provide a toolkit to schools to support students to develop their business ideas and social-impact projects as part of the curriculum. These will be tailored to the school’s priorities.

Start-Up, Incubation and Networking

Student Futures start-up and business incubation advice service, which can also be delivered as a Professional Placement Year programme.

Entrepreneurship

The delivery of entrepreneurial skills and mindset sessions within the curriculum.

Civic Mission and Social Impact

Student Futures is working with the University’s Civic Mission team to increase student engagement with civic mission and social impact projects.

Many academic Schools offer opportunities for curricular work or study abroad as a mandatory or integral part of a degree programme. This can include a year or semester
studying or researching at international partner universities, or a year working at an international company as part of a Professional Training Year.
The Global Opportunities Team provide support to schools in the promotion and development of opportunities, as well as providing support to participating students.

Many academic schools also offer a range of shorter term curricular international opportunities, such as medical or healthcare electives abroad or group fieldtrips.

Central sessions run by Student Futures are offered to students on return from their international placements. This is with the aim of encouraging students to reflect on the skills
gained while abroad, and providing support on how to articulate the development of their graduate attributes when applying for future employment opportunities.

Student Futures sources a range of work placements in various formats (see section 4.2.5).
Whilst these are sourced as extracurricular opportunities, they can also form the work-based learning element of a module, or act as an integrated Professional Training Year.

Working collaboratively with employers to embed employer activity within the curriculum enhances both learning and teaching, and student employability. Employer engagement
activity is hugely diverse, ranging from work-based learning, internships and placements, to employers providing case studies, guest speakers, mentors, knowledge exchange,
consultancy projects and career insights. Employers can provide real world examples, research projects and opportunities for authentic assessment within the curriculum, enabling students to better understand how their subject and its methods are applied in practice.

Employers and alumni can provide invaluable insights into the range of career pathways available to students, the knowledge and skills students will need when they transition into
the world of work, and some of the key trends and challenges facing specific industries. Increasingly, employers are aiming to increase the diversity in their workforce and looking
for opportunities to work with universities in a more bespoke way. Student Futures have an extensive network of employers and alumni, and a dedicated engagement team with a wealth of expertise to support schools to embed employer activity within the curriculum.

The Advice & Guidance team support a wide range of extracurricular activities related to employability. Careers Advisers and Employability Advisers work together to deliver
programmes of activity in each school and in the Centre for Student Life, with Employability Advisers focusing on supporting students with the recruitment process.

Key activities include:
• Careers talks and workshops on a wide range of employability topics including sector specific careers education. To maximise student engagement, we now ask schools to
work with us to ensure these workshops are integrated into student timetables wherever possible.

• Employer and Alumni events - working in partnership with our Employer Engagement team and the Development and Alumni Relations team, Student Futures facilitates tailored events involving employers and alumni. Again, school support is vital to ensure student engagement, particularly when external speakers are involved.

• Career Coaching and appointments with Careers Advisers - available to all students at undergraduate, postgraduate taught and postgraduate research level. Students can book
career coaching appointments with their school Careers Adviser. These can be one-off, or students can return for a series of appointments to explore career ideas in depth. Shorter
appointments are also available to provide feedback on CVs, applications and LinkedIn profiles, or to discuss how to find work experience. Students can arrange mock interviews
to practise interview technique, and video interview software is also available.

• Doctoral Academy - the Advice & Guidance team deliver workshops within the Doctoral Academy programme each year, and school Careers Advisers can also support tailored
postgraduate research careers input for their schools.

The Cardiff Award is an optional career development programme available to all students to complete within a single academic year. The Award is designed to introduce key employability
activities at a high level, to help students prepare for life after university. The programme can complement curricular employability activities.

The four streams of activity outlined in section 4.1.3. are all available on an extracurricular basis, allowing students to take part in entrepreneurial development at any point in their
academic journey. This also ensures that all students have the offer of enterprise activity available to them as part of their Cardiff student experience.

Student Futures offer an extensive programme of careers fairs and events throughout the academic year, which provide students with the opportunity to engage with employers, find
information about graduate jobs, internship and placement opportunities, and enable them to identify future careers via skills sessions, talks, and workshops.

Work experience can be an optional extracurricular activity for all students. In addition to Insights and short internships, which can be completed during each semester, students
can access career mentoring with an employer or alumnus and undertake a paid placement on a part-time or full-time basis. More tailored and flexible work experience is available for
under-represented groups of students who may face barriers, or lack employability skills or networks.

The Global Opportunities Team offer a wide range of short-term, extracurricular, work, study or volunteering placements over the summer months. To ensure accessibility, placements are of varied duration (2-12 weeks), location and activity type. Students are also able to access financial support to contribute towards the cost of international placements via external and institutional funding sources. The team also work with schools to develop academic staff-led group mobility projects to take place over the summer months.