September 24, 2024, by sszts1

Why I think you should do the Nottingham Advantage Award

By Asmita Roy, philosophy, politics, and economics student

In my second year, I decided to opt for the Nottingham Advantage Award (NAA). In this blog, I shall attempt to explain my motivations and expectations behind taking up the Peer Mentoring module and the NAA, my experience while doing it, and some final thoughts on why I think it is worth current students applying for the NAA.

My expectations and motivations

I decided to do peer mentoring in my second year, as the opportunity really resonated with me.

As an international student, when I first arrived here, I faced considerable difficulties in adjusting to the university life as well as a new country. Therefore, the prospect of supporting new students who might be facing similar challenges to those I faced appealed to me a lot and motivated me to sign up for it.

Additionally, applying for the peer mentoring module seemed to be the next reasonable step, as accrediting the work that I was going to do would lend more credibility to my experiences and make my profile more attractive to future employers.

My experience

During the peer mentoring experience, I was the mentor of three first year economics students, supporting them to navigate their transition to university.

I taught them the basics, such as how to utilise Moodle, and how to access the various facilities and services within the university if they needed further support. I also enjoyed having really meaningful conversations with my mentees on topics such as moving into university and further navigating life thereon.

Overall, this was an extremely fulfilling experience and I am planning on doing it again next year.

My reflective essay

As for the accreditation through the Award, I submitted a reflective essay near the end of my spring semester, where I got the opportunity to self-reflect upon my experience of doing peer mentoring throughout the year. The assignment was something that allowed opportunity for better self-understanding, instead of being an intimidating essay or exam.

The benefit of writing such a reflective essay is that it allowed me to better understand and note down the specific skills that I’ve gained from the experience which I might otherwise not think about.

Personally, while writing my reflective essay, I was able to point out the specific soft skills which I developed through my engagement with such a role, which in turn, allowed me to better craft my future CVs and cover letters. Therefore, the experience of taking up the NAA was also quite rewarding as the assignment associated with it was really tied to the work I did during my experience and didn’t require additional efforts to tackle, and yet supported me to make better applications in future.

My final thoughts

My honest advice to any current student is to look through the module catalogue of the Award and pursue at least one module, since it is a very lucrative opportunity: to not only engage yourself with something new and exciting (which can be rewarding in its own unique ways), but also accrediting these experiences will help you stand out in the job market in future. There’s plenty of different modules and opportunities listed under the NAA catalogue, so I believe that there’s something for everyone.

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