Master's programme inspires career ideas

Frankie Dobinson and Andrew Scott-Keiller took part in an away day as part of their MSc programmes, which focused on using learning to make a difference to individuals or society. Here, they discuss what the day involved and what they learned from it.

One of the highlights of the MSc Work and Organisational Psychology and MSc Occupational Psychology programmes was the annual away day. The theme of the day was Research, Practice and Impact, and it encouraged us to think about our learning throughout the year in the context of making a material difference to organisations, individuals and society. Throughout the day, we heard from a range of inspirational guest speakers, who have implemented the learnings of the MSc across a range of roles.

Passing on knowledge

Sarah Shepherd and Kathryn Andrew - previous graduates of the course and now PhD students - began the day with some reflections on the latter stages of their MSc journeys, along with some words of wisdom for our upcoming dissertation writing. This was a perfect balance of reassurance not to put ourselves under too much pressure, but at the same time a forewarning from those that have been there and done it; that some elements of the project compilation may take longer than initially anticipated.

It was also good to hear the perceptions and experiences of Ceire Fulton, a former MSc Occupational Psychology student and now Learning and Development Partner at Klarent Hospitality, regarding the employability of graduates of the MSc and the contribution they can make to private sector people operations.

Finally, we heard from Belgin Okay-Somerville, Editor of EWOP in Practice, about the opportunities for research collaborations and to contribute to published academia, as well as the importance and ways in which people professionals can connect and network with one another.

Presentation task

We were then given a presentation task aimed at commercialising our dissertation ideas, and selling our ideas to the panel of aforementioned speakers. What was funny about this was that everyone in the room automatically snapped into brainstorming. The MSc had taught us new things, sure. But it has also left us with ingrained procedural skills. Initially, our group treated it a bit too much like an assignment, but we quickly loosened up and sped the process along. Each of us volunteered our dissertation topics and we settled on combining two of them into a pitch: it had a human component - us - and an AI component to help us scale the idea within large firms.

The pitch was for an employee retention and wellbeing scheme which prioritised worker autonomy and, to this end, used AI to assess discrepancies between job descriptions and actual job tasks.

We were stuck for a moment on the question, “what is the product?”, but realised that we were providing a service, not a product: our skills were the USP. Basically, the sell was that if (particularly younger) employees are leaving jobs due to lack of clarity and autonomy regarding their work, then job-task analysis could identify the gaps which we could close for a client.

The speed and clarity of everyone’s thinking was clear to see. This was despite the little warning and it being towards the end of a long day of concentration. The alumni guest speakers quizzed us as we discussed, teaching us a great deal in a matter of minutes: identifying pain-points, experiences of bad hires, and more, all of which informed our pitch too.

Individual thoughts

Frankie: Stephanie Wrightson shared insights into how to forge a career in self-employed consultancy, which was a particularly interesting discussion for me as it is a career direction I find appealing but would not have otherwise known where to begin. Taranjot Chopra discussed Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, a unique combination of academic research and organisational innovation that I had not previously been aware of, but that would now strongly consider.

Andrew: I talk a lot, I talk fast, and I talk loudly. So, I was chosen for the pitch (fair enough). I knew from experience that Frankie spoke well and had a good mind for detail, so asked him to join me, knowing he would identify and address anything I inevitably missed. Everyone’s presentations were full of creativity and humour. Decompressing from a challenging year, our presentations were part Dragon’s Den and part Edinburgh Fringe. We learned a lot from the others (as always) while also being creased with laughter.

Summing up

Going into the final stages of our studies, the away day was a welcome delve into the breadth of pathways this course could lead us down. It was a great way to approach the concepts and revisit the discussions we have had over the course of the year, but in a setting not purely focused on what this means in terms of assignments, and gave us inspiration for how we could build meaningful careers from our passion and expertise.

Frankie was a student on the MSc Work and Organisational Psychology programme while Andrew was a MSc Occupational Psychology student.