February 14, 2023, by aqykd2

My Nottingham Advantage Award experience

Amidst our current work, academics and social life, it has been challenging to think about the future. As a second year student in a three year course, I have been trying to start thinking about what I would like to pursue after I graduate. But in this world full of opportunities, the scopes of our studies are unlimited too! So my approach to choosing a career path has been this: I make a list of my own interests and get a taste of every field to make an informed decision at the end. In the process, I could also learn some additional skills.

This might seem like extra work initially but it got easier for me to do when I discovered the Nottingham Advantage Award. It’s a free employability scheme set up by our university to help us bridge the gap between our studies and employability skills. It is a way in which we could take up extracurriculars and have them count towards extra credits. They have various modules specific to courses, skills, and even employers! It has been especially helpful for me in exploring my career interests further.

The modules that I have completed so far include: 

1. Enterprise-Rent a Car, Working with employers: I was extremely excited to take up the entrepreneurship module. I had the opportunity to work with the company, Enterprise-Rent a Car and present my ideas to the Talent Acquisition Marketing Specialist. I was allocated to a team of students pursuing different courses who had the most diverse approaches to work on the project. We were given a fictional budget of 50,000 GBP to expand their business to a new city (backed by research) and make budget allocations to create marketing plans. These ideas would later be presented to the decision-makers. I also had the chance to give a mock video interview to experience their recruitment process. This not only helped me recognise my interests in marketing but also helped me gain experience of the recruitment process. 
2. Introduction to Coding:  I decided to pick this module as a starting step to familiarize myself with some concepts of coding and prepare myself for undertaking a course in the future. And I would recommend it to anyone looking to learn the basic skills of software development. I believe that this module mainly served the purpose of helping me think like a coder by teaching me about the several aspects to consider and include to produce a successful, efficient code. I may not be able to write codes yet but I have learnt to greatly appreciate how much work and how many lines of code go into producing the most simple looking programs for a user that perform such complex functions! 

The Nottingham Advantage Award is not awarded physically, but it is added to your degree certificate. I would recommend it to anyone that is looking to broaden their skillset as you will also be recognised for it! 

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