Global Graduates: study abroad, languages and careers.
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"The strategic importance to the UK of increasing the international experience of UK graduates." A talk given by Lizzie Fane, Founder of ThirdYearAbroad.com, to the Modern Languages APPG in the House of Lords, January 2016.
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Global Graduates: study abroad, languages and careers.
- 1. Lizzie Fane, Founder of Global graduates: the strategic importance to the UK of increasing the international experience of UK graduates.
- 3. • Funding • Accommodation • Insurance • Travel • Shipping • Language • Documentation • Money/banking • Packing • Phones • Registration • Settling in • Culture Shock • Summer jobs • Career advice
- 4. The Student Experience • International opportunity = part of course OR advertised to them via mailing list, social media, flyers or an International Fair. • They are attracted by adventure, popular culture, CV benefits and funding. • What do they think the advantage is? Everything they are told! It is “good for your CV” and…
- 5. “The best year of your life!”
- 14. Nick Holzherr, International Business and German. Year abroad in Frankfurt where he started his first business. 2012: on The Apprentice.
- 15. Universities’ Choice Award for Most Transformed Student Our winner, Rae-Ellen Collins, nominated by the Placement Officer at Sheffield Hallam University
- 16. BC’s Generation UK-India (Digital India or Make in India) BC’s Generation UK-China Internships UKTI’s Postgraduates for International Business EC’s Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs Lord Bilimoria, Founder of Cobra Beer
- 18. SKILL ACQUISITION = “the value-added graduate”
- 19. • “Global Graduates understand and appreciate international cultures in external client meetings (e.g. etiquette).” • “Global Graduates can enrich the company culture and bring new ideas and attitudes.” • “Global Graduates diversify our junior intake which, traditionally, has been red-brick 2:1 same old, same old.” Employers say…
- 20. Graduates looking for roles which specify language skills. Employers looking for ‘value-added graduates’ but don’t want to reduce application pool by specifying individual skills, like languages. + MFL graduates have difficulty translating the skills they have acquired on their year abroad into workplace skills on their CV. Catch-22 Situation
- 22. • Global Communications internship, International Chambers of Commerce, Paris • Multimedia Reporter, BBC Afrique, Cameroon • Cricket coaching year abroad work placement, Cricket Argentina, Buenos Aires • Summer 2016 internship, Christie’s, New York • Marketing Assistant internship, WayToStay, Barcelona • Social Media Broadcast Journalist (Arabic- speaking), BBC, UK • EU Finance internship, Amazon, Luxembourg • Marketing Internship, Etsy, Australia • Spain & Italy PR Specialist, Airbnb, Barcelona • Asia Internship Program, Christie’s, Hong Kong
- 23. “I work for the ambulance service by day, and by night I am a Special Constable for Greater Manchester Police. Both of these jobs revolve around interaction with different people and cultures, and I believe my year abroad helped me enormously in securing these positions.” Elise Jackson, German, University of Leeds. Erasmus in Germany, now works for the ambulance service and Greater Manchester Police.
- 24. we better support the UK’s future gr • Work with Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs • Promote the funding aspect of the year abroad • Promote case studies not clichés • Fund an annual UK-wide Year Abroad Award to find the best case studies to use for promotion • Collect case studies from employers about the benefit hiring Global Graduates • Support our website :)
- 25. Thank you very much! @thirdyearabroad @globalgrads
Editor's Notes
- Introducing ThirdYearAbroad.com, the UK’s biggest network of students who study or work abroad as part of their degree course. All of our articles are written by our community.
- We help students in these areas.
- How easy is it to find out about international opportunities? Mailing lists, noticeboards and flyers, international events. StudyWorkCreate has a lot of applicants, but one of the issues that was raised at the Universities UK conference last year was that students would really like to know the number of applicants and the number of places for each programme, as otherwise they worry that there would be too much competition per place.
- Social Media Problems: “The best year of your life!” - in hindsight, they DON’T like being told this. Pressure! Social media = other students’ rose-tinted (or filtered!) BEST BITS!
- This sometimes leads to mental health problems, which are rarely discussed in terms of studying or working abroad, but are of crucially important to address.
- Mental health is an area which International Office Staff are not necessarily trained to deal with. So where to students go to ask questions?
- Introducing TYA Answers (tyaanswers.com) our free Question and Answer Platform, all about studying and working abroad, and funded by Routes into Languages. Students are free to ask and answer questions anonymously, leading to difficult and sensitive issues being discussed. In reality the things that are really deterring students from doing a year abroad and are holding mobility back, apart from finances, are worry over homesickness, shyness, anxiety and relationship concerns.
- These are screenshots of Mental Health-related questions which have been asked on TYAanswers.com. This shows that a lot of students go online to find answers to their questions. The benefit of encouraging students to use our platform to address these issues is that these topics are addressed publicly (but anonymously, if desired) within a community which has the answers, so universities can point their students with particularly difficult questions towards our support network, and know that they will get answers from experienced peers. It also means that we can spot themes and collect data, all in one place.
- We can even give staff a dashboard where they can see the questions their students have asked, so they can spot themes (e.g. Accommodation or Mental Health concerns) to help tailor their live events and seminars.
- The community offers moral support - and in real life too! which is why when we surveyed students about the BEST way to promote the year abroad, they said that it was with former students passing on their advice in person. Universities should organise as many of these meetups as possible! One uni I went to in November used part of their year abroad talk to Skype their students abroad - including one in Honolulu, which made all the students watching incredibly jealous!
- The year abroad is a fantastic time to start a business! You have funding, time and can spot many more opportunities when you are out of your comfort zone.
- We launched the Year Abroad Awards (as part of our Partnership with Routes into Languages) and one of the categories was the Most Entrepreneurial Student Award. It received some fantastic and inspiring entries! We will use these as case studies to promote entrepreneurship in our community, and would love to find funding for the Awards in 2016.
- Nick Holzherr is a fantastic year abroad graduate entrepreneur success story, having started his first business on his year abroad in Frankfurt.
- We also had a Universities’ Choice Award for the Most Transformed Student - the entries form even more case studies to use to promote international opportunities, but showcase the importance of the experience abroad in creating more well-rounded, independent, motivated, *global* graduates.
- ENTREPRENEURIAL PROGRAMMES: Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs (European Commission), the UKTI’s Postgraduates for International Business Programme, the British Council’s Generation UK-India and Generation UK-China are all fantastic programmes to inspire and cultivate entrepreneurship in students and graduates. The entrepreneur Lord Bilimoria even spoke at the Generation UK-India event in January 2016! Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs is particularly exciting. From the beginning of the programme in 2009 to August 2015, there were 2996 exchanges between new and host entrepreneurs. 283 exchanges are currently ongoing or ready to start, and 133 are in the preparation phase. 36.5% of the aspiring entrepreneurs who have participated in the programme have created their own business. 61% of new entrepreneurs and 54% of host entrepreneurs surveyed increased their turnover after the programme, and 90% of the programme’s new entrepreneurs acquired knowledge about new markets during the exchange.
- One of the things students particularly like about studying abroad is that they get to pick new modules they don’t have the opportunity to study at home. That means you try new things, giving you a better chance of knowing what you want to focus on in future. You also learn languages and get international work experience. Employers really like Global Graduates and joint degrees because they create “value-added graduates” (expression coined by Bernardette Holmes, Born Global).
- Employers we've spoken to have talked about the need to understand and appreciate international cultures in relation, predominantly, to external client meetings (e.g. meeting etiquette/dos & don’ts). Also as many businesses' (especially London businesses') teams are becoming more international they are also looking out for grads who have travelled, lived or worked abroad as they can enrich the company culture, bring new ideas and attitudes. We were chatting to an ad agency recently who are looking to attract more global graduates to diversify their junior intake which, traditionally, had been red-brick/2:1 “same old, same old.” Employers can teach their trade, but they can’t teach a language or cultural understanding in the same amount of time.
- So what should graduates do? Apply for roles in international companies, or those wishing to ‘go global’ and proactively push their languages by helping the company get new clients/customers in areas that speak that language. They are, to use Bernardette Holmes’s terminology, “Value-added graduates”.
- We have created GlobalGraduates.com to help our community find work experience, internships and jobs which use their intercultural and linguistic skills, and allow them to travel. It is free for organisations to post their roles on our jobs board.
- Here are some roles which were recently advertised on the site. We hope the fact that they are exciting roles will mean that advertising them to younger students will inspire them to learn languages and gain international experience. We hope that parents and teachers will also use our listings for this purpose.
- When students find work in the UK as Global Graduates, they bring a wealth of intercultural experience, tolerance and understanding to their role, which is incredibly important for the UK.
- Here are my suggestions for supporting the UK’s future graduates.
- Please do tweet us with your questions and comments.