The University of Bath is a place full of opportunity, as BA (Hons) Education with Psychology, Lola discovered via the Students’ Union’s Jobs portal.
Grace Smith, a current Bath Insights Intern in the Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences, spoke to Lola about her journey and how it’s helped her to find passions she didn’t know she had and discover a new potential career path.
Finding roles with the Students’ Union
When I joined the University as a fresher, I wanted to try to get a part-time job to get some experience and money. After looking through the Students’ Union (SU) Jobs page, I saw an opportunity to be a Content Creator with the Skills Centre.
I applied and luckily got the job, so I got to be involved with a range of things that I’d never experienced before, such as research projects, social media takeovers, writing blogs and creating resources for students. This allowed me to engage with a new side of work, which I really enjoyed, and I got to improve my creativity skills by designing engaging posts throughout the year.
I was lucky that my team recognised my hard work and commitment, and I was later offered a role as a Content Creator for the University alongside my studies! These things work quite well with your studies because you know your managers are super aware of when exams are.
Because of these roles, I gained confidence in myself and professional skills within the workplace that you don’t get from day-to-day uni life. These small things go a long way in the workplace and show you can work with a range of people in a professional manner.
I would also say I gained confidence communicating with different people, even simple things like sending emails to different groups and understanding the hierarchies and how to address people. Even small things, like learning how to set up Teams calls or add other people's calendars, were incredibly beneficial.
Discovering the Bath Insights Internship Scheme
Because I found a love for marketing, I decided to apply for one of the roles with the Bath Insights Internship Scheme. I was successful in gaining a place with the Centre for Learning and Teaching (CLT) as a Digital Accessibility Designer.
Through this role, I got to work with experienced staff, as well as liaising with academic staff and students, to help create resources that improve students’ experiences.
I learnt about the importance of putting myself out there to get the most out of my time, and networking with other interns at Bath, as well as other staff members. This experience helped me grow my confidence for future networking at events.
Using tools like WordPress and Microsoft Office to help lecturers make their content more digitally accessible was really great, and I’m sure it will be important for me to use in the future. I had no idea about digital accessibility before I went into the role, so it was brilliant to learn about the importance of this.
This is one of the many things that I got to learn on the job that I didn’t expect at first, but I am more than grateful for my learning experiences. I am also grateful to all my colleagues for helping me progress through the workplace environment, which is definitely different to that of a student!
Having an open mindset going into roles and projects is a great asset to help you get the most out of your experiences and even fall in love with something you did not expect.