Progressing towards higher study: students show the way

An event to raise awareness of studying at Strathclyde and increase progression rates from school to university is being run by some Strathclyde Business School students. Here undergraduate Alistair Gray outlines some of what’s planned.

As part of Strathclyde Business School’s Management Development Programme for undergraduate students, we are running One Step Forward, a one day event on April 4 which allows school children from in and around Glasgow to see what studying business at the top business school in Scotland is like.

Our mission is to provide fun and interesting activities in the heart of the university’s campus which will encourage more school-leavers to choose Strathclyde Business School as an option when considering their next step. We want to give them as much knowledge and experience as we can of what studying at Strathclyde is like.

This is a student-led event and our first-hand experience of studying here will hopefully mean the day’s events cater to what pupils need to know before applying – with personal insights into life at university that provides more detail than any brochure or website can.

Pupils will get the chance to meet peers who are also interested in business at Strathclyde and allow them to pick the brains of current Strathclyde students. We are also running a concurrent parents’ session, so that any questions they might have concerning the university can be answered and it gives Business School staff the chance to speak direct to parents and highlight the advantages of studying at Strathclyde Business School.

The day will start off with fun ice-breaker activities allowing everyone to get to know each other. This will be followed by a presentation by Lesley Nixon, senior student adviser, who will talk about the different degrees that the business school offers and provide some details about these programmes. This will give participants the chance to see the wide range of options that are open to potential students and identify which ones interest them the most.

We will be offering a campus tour so that the school groups can see exactly what buildings they could be studying in and get a feel for where everything is. In addition there will be a treasure hunt and quiz involved to get potential students to learn about the campus.

A lecture from the business enterprise team will give an insight into some of the options available in the business world. This will include a talk about start-up companies and their journey – Strathclyde Business School has seen many undergraduates launch their own start up business while studying here.

Finally we will host a ‘build an app’ competition to see who can think of the best idea for an app, and this has the added benefit of allowing pupils to work together on a project which reflects what life at Strathclyde will be like – the Management Development Programme is just one of the ways in which students work together in groups on different projects. Prizes will be given out to individuals or groups who have performed particularly well throughout the day.

The event ran last year and proved extremely successful. We aim to repeat this and encourage the maximum number of students to consider and apply to study at Strathclyde Business School. One comment last year was: “My time spent at the One Step Forward event was very successful.. I now know what to expect, and what careers I can pursue from University’’. We hope everyone who attends this year will feel just the same!