2022 prize winners
The Advantage Award recognises your efforts in developing and reflecting upon your employability skills, helping to prepare you for your future career.
We also award a series of prizes, sponsored by employers, to students who have gone above and beyond during their Award modules.
2022 Advantage Award prize winners
Contribution to the Community Prize
This prize recognises an individual student's passion for their contribution to the local community.
Supported by Save the Children
The Advantage Award was a great opportunity to work on something interesting outside of my degree. As part of the Award’s Placement and Internship Schemes module, I was placed in a community foundation centred around helping women in self-education to increase their career prospects. From this role I gained valuable teamwork, communication and leadership experience curating online educational resources and creating accessible articles to help the community members. The module A Window on the World helped me strengthen my cultural awareness and respect for diversity by navigating through the proposed intercultural journey.
Winner:
Maria-Komissa Kalafati, third year BA Education
I saw the Advantage Award as an exciting opportunity to expand my skillset and increase my employability. I chose my modules with the intention of positively impacting the lives of others as well as equipping me with skills essential to my chosen career. The Students as Change Agents and the UoNSU Student Leaders modules enabled me to positively contribute to the student community. COVID-19 Student Volunteers enabled me to make an impact in the wider community of children and young people.
Highly commended:
Celine Hall, BSc Psychology with Placement Year
Leadership Prize
This prize recognises an individual student who has demonstrated leadership skills.
Supported by Mars
I participated in the Advantage Award as I wanted to challenge myself to develop new skills beyond my degree. I was particularly eager to improve my teamwork and interpersonal skills as the pandemic has limited my opportunities to practise these. The Peer Mentoring module and Representation in the Students’ Union module were particularly important to me after the disruption of the past few years. I had strong ideas about helping other students through the disturbances and how to minimise the impact of these on our education. The Skills for Employability module focussed on self-reflection, which helped me identify areas to develop and allowed me to track my improvement of these.
Winner:
Lydia Smith, third year BA history
I got involved with the Advantage Award to improve my employability and professional skills. In addition, I wanted to demonstrate to future employers my eagerness to develop outside of my degree. I chose the Nottingham Summer Engineering Research Project module to experience being a researcher and see if it was a role I wanted to do in the future. For my Peer Mentoring module, I wanted to help future students settle and learn things that I wish I knew when I started at the University.
Highly Commended:
Ayman Kausar, fifth year MEng Chemical Engineering
Personal Development Prize
This prize recognises an individual student for their commitment to personal development.
Supported by Capital One
For me, the Advantage Award was a personal development journey. I knew that I needed to be proactive towards improving myself. The Award was my way of taking practical action to build my character and acquire valuable skills that could help me across all walks of life. I was especially driven to make up for past setbacks and prove to myself that I could stand out from the crowd. My two skills-based modules – Skills for Employability and Career Skills for Psychology Students – helped me to develop stronger commercial awareness, understand my strengths and areas I should focus on improving, and identify career goals.
The Nottingham Consultancy Challenge allowed me to get out of my comfort zone in a real-life consultancy scenario.
Winner:
Dylan Cox, third year BSc Psychology
The Advantage Award provides opportunities to undertake new modules, develop life-long skills and learn new techniques. As a remote learner, I understood the vast implications this had, so I enrolled in Covid-19: Student Volunteers. I held online classes for children: using communication skills, navigating through technical issues and managing my time well to organise the lessons. The Nottingham Consultancy Challenge developed my understanding of companies and how they run. It improved my skills such as teamwork, leadership, communication and problem solving. Both modules reinforced reflection, I use this in the charity work I am currently doing and plan to in my future endeavours.
Highly commended:
Saheli Moorjani, second year BSc Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
Inclusion Prize
This prize recognises the outstanding achievement of a student who has supported inclusion in their activities throughout the Award
Supported by Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Rather than only learning how to be a good scientist, I also wanted to learn how to be a better colleague and peer. The Award module Excel in Science offered this opportunity and more: launching with an event on centring BAME voices in STEM. In becoming a course representative, I saw an opportunity to give back: utilising previous skills in remote working and developing important interpersonal and leadership skills. The Importance of Representation in the Students’ Union invited me to reflect on this experience and explore ways to continue to grow.
Winner:
Joanna Redfeather, second year MSci Zoology
I got involved in the Advantage Award because I wanted to challenge myself to actively engage with important social initiatives alongside my degree. Participating in the Advantage Award instilled within me invaluable employability skills such as project management and communication which significantly helped me to be inclusive to all individuals. The Social Impact Game module and my placement as part of the Award’s Placement and Internship Scheme allowed me to further my passion for being part of projects that aim to promote inclusivity.
Highly Commended:
Aaliyah Javed, second year BA Criminology and Sociology
Professional Development Prize
This prize recognises students' passion, innovation and dedication to their professional development.
Supported by Boots
I decided to get involved with the Advantage Award because I wanted to grow more as a professional, rather than just a student. The Award was a great way to engage in extracurricular activities while receiving recognition for my work. The module Engaging with Libraries massively increased my confidence and leadership skills: making me more comfortable in taking charge. Experience the Cultural Sector gave me the ability to develop professional relationships. Career Skills for English Students allowed me to grow my commercial awareness and reflect on my professional journey.
Winner:
Daria Paterek, second year BA English with Placement Year
I partook in the Advantage Award to enhance my own awareness of the professional fields I could pursue. It allowed me to explore interests not covered within my academic studies. I undertook the Skills for Employability module to reflect upon informational events with a range of employers, including a law firm and publishers. My participation in the Capital One and Boots modules was motivated by my intrigue in business and product development strategies.
Highly Commended:
Alice Rowe, third year BA English
Module of the Year
After student nominations the following six modules were shortlisted:
- A window on the world - An intercultural journey from the local to the global
- Career mentoring
- Economic analysis with Excel
- English language support for refugees and migrants in the Nottingham area
- Nottingham Consultancy Challenge
- Save the Children enterprise scheme
Our winner was English Language Support for Refugees and Migrants in the Nottingham area.
What winning meant to the convenor:
We are genuinely delighted and grateful to be recognised as the Advantage Award Module of the Year 2022.
We run this English language teaching module to give our students the opportunity to gain teaching experience and to fill the gap in English language provision for sanctuary seekers and migrants in the East Midlands. The programme also enables us and our students to connect with and support the local community.
The students’ hard work and enthusiasm is what makes this module both exceptional and successful. We would also like to acknowledge the superb support we get from the Nottingham Advantage Award team.
Student nomination statement:
By having the opportunity to teach, it has helped improve my public speaking, teamwork, leadership and confidence levels. I came in with no experience of teaching. With the support of resources provided by staff, feedback provided by students and the support of my peers; I was able to develop my confidence further as a teacher.
I also had the opportunity to learn more about the experience of refugees in the UK and their barriers in accessing Higher Education. I feel privileged to have been part of this journey for them.