Students at The University of Nottingham celebrated employability yesterday at the first Nottingham Advantage Award event.
The Nottingham Advantage Award is a scheme run by the University to enhance students’ skills while they take their degree. As well as studying the usual academic subjects, students can take extra-curricular modules which build skills and experience in areas such as PR, finance and career planning through activities with the University’s Centre for Career Development, Widening Participation and the Students’ Union.
Activities are flexible and devised around a student’s needs — participants could find themselves helping at a student open day, helping a teacher in a local school or investigating a financial career in London.
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This year has seen students taking the PR project management module — making themselves visible on campus. They chose to promote healthy eating to the student community, manning a stall in the Portland Building on University Park and handing out free fruit and veg — they even dressed up as fruit and veg to get the message out to their target audience.
Yesterday’s event celebrated the first year of the scheme, in which 176 students registered to take part. Students were presented with certificates marking the completion of their first modules. Each module is worth ten credits, with 30 credits needed to complete the scheme. Students take a maximum of two modules a year to ensure that the scheme doesn’t affect their studies.
The scheme uses the concept of reflective learning — the idea that people learn more effectively if they’re given the opportunity to reflect on the activities they’ve done, evaluate the outcome and consider other options they could have taken. This strengthens critical thinking and self evaluation skills, as well as developing a better sense of focus — all of which are valued by employers and could help in landing a graduate job.
Dr Paul Greatrix, Registrar at The University of Nottingham, said: “At Nottingham, we understand that students acquire skills and additional learning from extra-curricular activities. The Nottingham Advantage Award recognises these and offers students a way of showing employers how the transferable skills they have developed make them even more employable.”
Professor David Riley, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Student Experience at the University, said: “The University of Nottingham offers a huge range of quality extra-curricular activities that help make our students some of the most employable in the UK. The Nottingham Advantage Award is designed to recognise their successes outside their academic studies, offering a tangible benefit to add to a CV.”
For more information on the Nottingham Advantage Awards visit