Career enhancing opportunities
Want to boost your employability even further?
Beyond the lecture theatre and on-campus offerings, there are a variety of optional opportunities and activities available to help you stand out from the crowd in the graduate careers market.
We’ve opportunities for everyone as we support you to enhance your employability. It’s all part of your experience with us.
- Global opportunities like studying abroad or learning a language.
- Financial support for a career valuable experience.
- Inspirational opportunities with one of one our partner organisations.
- Work experience and networking with professional employers.
You won’t be short of ways to boost your career prospects, experiences and skills during your time with us.
Our careers service is on-hand too, offering any support and guidance you need for your future.
Broaden your horizons abroad
Like the idea of experiencing a new country and culture? Why not try it. You can choose to study abroad for a semester, or a full year. Studying abroad will also allow you to forge new friendships, strengthen your skills and consolidate your confidence.
How does North America, China, Japan, South Korea or Europe sound? We have partner universities offering study abroad opportunities in all these locations, and more.
Opportunities to study abroad vary depending on the course you study, so do keep this in mind if it’s something you’re thinking about. As you can imagine, these opportunities are also pretty competitive, so places and availability can’t always be guaranteed.
If you like the idea of experiencing another country, but aren’t quite sure if you want to commit to full-time study whilst you’re there, then there are opportunities to take short trips abroad too.
These may be trips on offer as part of your course, or could be on offer outside of your studies over the summer months.
Learning a language can go a long way
Gain insight into other countries. Improve your communication skills. Prepare for spending time in other places across the world. Learning a new language or improving your existing skills can make a huge difference to your options.
Arabic, French, German, Spanish or Mandarin are optional language modules available to study on selected courses with us. They’re integrated as part of the course and you will gain academic credits for studying these languages too.
If you’d prefer to separate your language learning from your studies, then Italian, Spanish, German, French and Arabic are also available on our Language Steps Classes. These are 10-weeks of two hour evening classes and when you’re a registered student, we’ll cover the cost for you.
If learning and practising a language with a native speaker is more your style, then we also offer a Conversation Exchange Scheme which allows for just that. You’ll meet one-to-one with your language partner who’ll also benefit from developing fluency in your language.
Gain real-world experience on a work placement
Want to experience the world of work in an area that interests you? Perhaps you fancy gaining valuable business contacts and increasing your transferable skills? The majority of our courses offer placement opportunities to allow you to gain a unique insight into your future career options.
Work placement opportunities are hugely beneficial for enhancing your employability and building your experience. On some of our courses these placements are mandatory as part of your study. On others, work placements are optional and subject to availability.
An essential element of some of our courses, professional practice placements meet the requirements of the relevant professional and statutory bodies. Not only will you gain practical work-related experience in an organisation, you will benefit from support and assessment from a mentor.
Spend a year as a full-time employee in industry
There is often no better way of gaining the required skills, first-hand knowledge and practical experience for your future, than spending time in the industry you want to join when you graduate. What’s better than to be able to do this for a full year?
Many of our courses offer you the option to experience the industry during an additional sandwich year, usually taking place between Year 2 and Year 3 of your studies.
You’ll need to find and successfully apply to a suitable placement provider, but for about 9-12 months you’ll become a full-time paid or unpaid employee of the organisation you’re joining. There are no additional tuition fees to pay if you take on a sandwich year.
Our Student Opportunity Fund offers a helping hand
We’re here to help you make the most of the opportunities on offer. Our Student Opportunity Fund (SOF) is designed to prevent you from missing out on great, career-enhancing, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.
If you’re an undergraduate or PGCE student, you’ll be entitled to apply for up to £2,000 to support with any opportunity that could help to enhance your career. That could be anything from assistance with attending an interview, potential costs surrounding a particular work-related experience, or helping fund a trip or individual career-focused project.
We don’t want you to miss out on any experiences to enhance your employability. So, if the only obstacle is a little money, our Student Opportunity Fund is here to help.
Going further with scholarship opportunities
We have a range of scholarships available to celebrate determination, commitment and achievement. Whether it’s in academic excellence, success outside of your studies, overcoming adversity, helping and inspiring others, or something else, we have a scholarship programme to recognise and celebrate your achievements.
If you aren’t sure if you can apply, we’ve created this handy Scholarships Calculator for you to check your eligibility.
Don’t let the competitive application or nomination process put you off, this is just the standard procedure for some of our scholarships.
There are some scholarships though that are awarded automatically. You can find out more about each award in our scholarship pages.