Activities supported by Student Futures

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

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.

Start-Up, Incubation and Networking

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

Entrepreneurial Skills and Mindset

Delivery of skills sessions within the curriculum.

Inspire Programme

An introduction to entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship by asking students to solve ‘wicked problems’ via ‘business games’ or ‘hackathons’ for groups of students, followed by reflection on development of graduate attributes. Student Futures can provide a toolkit to schools and work with them to tailor the model to the school’s priorities.

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 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, fieldtrips or summer research placements abroad. The Global Opportunities team also work with schools to develop academic staff-led group mobility projects.

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. below). 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.

Careers talks and Workshops

These cover 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.

Careers appointments with Careers Advisers

Appointments are available to all students at undergraduate, postgraduate taught and postgraduate research level.
Students can book career appointments with their school-specific Careers Adviser.
Shorter appointment called “ask an Adviser’ 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.

Students with any additional barriers to employment can also book an appointment with the Career Confident Team, where they can benefit from more tailored support.

Doctoral Academy

The Advice & Guidance team can contribute to the Doctoral Academy Programme each year, and school Careers Advisers can also support Postgraduate Research students in 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 three 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 via the Career Confident team 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.