University of St Andrews

Employability Initiatives

The Careers Centre has increased its involvement with academic Schools in recent years to provide in partnership with the Schools employability activities and resources. These activities have been designed to motivate and enable students to begin career-related activities in good time and to make best use of the wide range of opportunities available to them, including engagement in extra-curricular activities and gaining work-experience or other work related learning.

The main initiatives include:

• St Andrews Award  - this has been introduced to encourage, validate and recognise varied and challenging students activities which are not currently accredited such as volunteering, work experience, involvement in societies etc. This will be made available to all 2nd years from 2010.
• Employability sessions -  these have been delivered to all second year students with the emphasis on School specific information  related to graduate destinations, transferable skills, work experience and trends in the current graduate market. A key feature of these sessions is the inclusion of current students as co-presenters sharing their experiences.
• Bespoke sessions - several Schools have requested additional  intervention from the Careers Centre these have included;
  
  • Biology  - inclusion in induction sessions for all levels
  • Geography and Geoscience - motivational workshops for SH students to prepare them for graduation with a particular emphasis on postgraduate study
  • Biochemistry & Molecular Biology level 2000 - two workshops run in partnership with a local employer and using postgraduate students as group facilitators. These highly interactive workshops were designed to prepare students for job/work experience application process.
  • History of Art - seminars to postgraduate Museum and Gallery students on getting careers in that area
  • Societies - History of Art, Geoscience and Economics & Finance are running career related events in partnership with the relevant societies.

To find out more detail on any of these initiatives please contact the Employability Coordinator, Pamela Andrew pea1@st-andrews.ac.uk.