As we begin to welcome our second cohort of students into our Mentorship programme, alongside psychology students at Nottingham Trent, we take some time reflecting on past student experiences.
In this blog, we hear from our Mentorship Champion, Gloria who took part in the program during last year’s cohort and has now joined us on an internship at Impact People and Change.
Summary of my experience
The mentorship program was divided into three key stages : the 1-1 mentoring sessions, the career talks and the social action project. I really valued each stage because I was able to gain a pool of different skills and take sways from this experience. For example, I was given the chance to develop my communication, project management and team skills.
The 1-1 mentoring sessions gave me clarity on how to use my current passions according to various work sectors. My mentor also supported me in establishing a sector I would best strive in, according to my personal interests being different to my degree being Psychology with criminology.
The career talks further emphasised that career journeys are never linear which gave me comfort and clarity in my interests not being fixed over my 3 years at university.
Lastly, the social action project was an amazing opportunity that allowed me to develop an immense amount of confidence throughout the whole process. It was also an opportunity that enabled me to give back to our community and work on a meaningful cause which added value to my overall university experience.
Being given the tasks to reach out to businesses, pitching back our experiences at the end of the program and pushing forward our chosen cause allowed us all to grow as individuals. The experience overall is one to remember!
Key learnings
Lesson one: Always create time and effort to support a cause that affects our wider society. It is always good to strive and focus on self achievements but it is even more valuable to be given the opportunity to help out those that might be in need and in disadvantaged positions. To know your time has been used to change someone’s life, even in the smallest of ways, is something that should be treasured.
Lesson two: Never downplay your achievements! We are all remarkable individuals and have been able to successfully overcome various hurdles of life. To remind ourselves of these, is to empower ourselves and remind ourselves that we are capable of achieving much more.
Through the #IamRemarkable, hosted by Hannah, I was pleased to remind myself of past achievements like being able to grow a clothing brand and fulfilling a large number of orders worldwide.
Lesson three: Having a support system is key for consistent growth. Being surrounded by other students made my experience more current and memorable, but being supported by Natasha and my allocated mentor Ralph made my experience more fulfilling and rich.
I was pleased to have been allocated with a mentor that could guide me into my next steps of my entrepreneurial journey and could often support my career journey by keeping in touch on LinkedIn.
What I’m expecting from the internship opportunity
I expect a lot of personal and professional growth to take place during this internship opportunity. I expect to grow in confidence and clarity in speech, after placing forward my interest in public speaking and wanting to develop the needed skills to pitch and present in the future, this opportunity is going to support me greatly in this aspect.
Also, my interests in social media marketing will be nurtured during this internship opportunity as I am excited to oversee and support both social media platforms ( Instagram and LinkedIn) for Impact People and Change.
I am so grateful to Natasha and everyone involved in the mentorship program. This program effectively shapes and guides students into their next career steps, whilst also providing them with the opportunity to give back to their community through a social action project.
I look forward to supporting this year’s cohort of students and to continue to positively impact the university experiences of students.