Have you wondered what it's like to witness the opening of a major careers hub at a university - something that students have been asking for a long time? Well, here we are then - welcome to this blogpost that covers the events surrounding the launch of the Enterprise and Careers Zone at the University of Suffolk on Wednesday, the 13th of September 2023.
There was certainly lots of shine and vibes to be had from coming to the event and to be able to hear from a wide range of people about the purpose of the space and the support from various areas of the University that made the opening of this space possible (not to mention that it was the big bosses' main ambition!), and so I hope you will enjoy reading what I have to say about this experience!
What stood in the Zone's place before its launch?
Before you can start talking about the Enterprise and Careers Zone launch event, you first have to talk about what was going on in the surrounding space in the Library building and the subsequent lead up to the launch.
The area where the Careers Zone stands now was a very different place when I was a university student (and even much earlier before that) - back in 2016 when I was in college, the space used to host a convenience store (run by an external company) that was open to members of the public, and some of the college students that I was hanging out with would go out to that shop and get something to eat at lower prices in comparison to purchasing food from the Suffolk New College cafeteria.
Then in 2019, plans were going on in the University's Student Union to renovate the breakout room around the Library Building as the old space was rather dreary and bleak (for anyone who could still remember it), and as part of the plan, it was decided to open up a shop with self-service kiosks in the breakout room. As a result, the space where the shop once stood was converted into a lecture room that was fitted out with Mac computers - and personally, I think that it is great to see that the space has seen some use as an educational space in the past.
Meanwhile, the University's Careers team used to share their offices with the Innovation Labs (formerly IWIC) in the Atrium building, and over the years that I've been inside that building, I would see staff come in and out of that office. But then you start thinking - what's the point of having a careers office if students and alumni can't come in and have access to the resources that are available to them on site that could help them in their career progression?
Now I first heard about the creation of a Careers Zone in the Library building back in April 2023 as I was wandering around the then-present location of the Careers office on an Alumni campus tour with Alice, and it must have been going in my head "wow, this must be an opportunity for the Careers team to provide even better support to students and alumni than now!" - and that hype kept creeping up for a brief moment when I was taken down to the Student Union breakout area, where I looked for a split second towards the door where the Careers Zone would now be situated. By that point, I knew that I was definitely looking forward to the launch when the time came.
Event experience
It was just after 3:00pm and I was wondering around the Waterfront, past the tall apartment buildings towards the University campus. It was just like any other jaunt down there... except I turned the corner to find Amy Volkert wandering about with Annabelle Richardson putting up posters around the University campus to inform students and staff about the launch of the Careers Zone. But then again, taking the Volkert by surprise has become one of my modus operandi in recent weeks.
Once I got *that* dose of the Volkert's shine, I crossed the road and went up to the Library building, and I was just standing there spying on the comings and goings of the Careers team - even seeing one of the signs about said Zone being put up outside the entrance. And of course, I was listening to the sounds of kids playing football, as well as the sound of balls crashing into the walls of the nearby college sports centre.
But I didn't have to wait too long outside, as the Volkert's helper (or more like the Enterprise Officer), Hannah Page, came just before 3:20pm and let me into the building with an ominous warning - the library building turnstiles close after a second so you better be quick or you risk getting squished!
When I got inside, there were obvious signs that the event wasn't ready, as all of the drink glasses were empty and the refreshments had just arrived. And so I was sitting in the library breakout space as if nothing special was set to happen in the next couple of hours, observing the Student Union front-of-house staff stocking up the shelves of the shop and answering queries from students, as well as glancing around at what was going on in the entertainment area to the back of the breakout space and listening to some peaceful music. And of course, constantly getting booted off the University Wi-Fi connection.
Just before 4:00pm, I heard a commotion outside the entrance to the Zone, as the big boss of Careers (shhh, don't say the name yet!) was chatting with a few colleagues about some random subject that I probably shouldn't know, and at one point, they were standing and playing around with the ribbons. By that point I must have realised that something was up, and that the event was indeed going to be special!
And the hype about the event went up even more about 15 minutes later, as Hannah was standing around the tables filling up the glasses with a wide range of non-alcoholic drinks, and topping them off with sparkling water (at one point almost overfilling some of the glasses).
At 4:30pm the first of the guests began to arrive in the Library building, and one of the careers advisers, Anna Flatt came out to speak to me. At that point, I was breaking some news to her about developments in my career journey that happened a few days earlier - I had secured a place as a volunteer in the nearby Hold building.
As the role is fantasy-map related in that I would be advising researchers on maps that they could use in their projects, I hope to make a blogpost about my experience as a volunteer there on this blog (respecting researchers' confidentiality of course) if Suffolk Archives allows me to do so at some point in the future.
Not long after, just before 4:50pm, I found myself back in the Volkert's hands, where at this point, I was told in no uncertain terms that the drinks were ready! This was also where the first participants from the Bootcamp delegation began to arrive (turns out that there would be fewer bootcampers attending the event), when our capuera dancer turned up to join the party. He told me that he randomly found me on the beach in Felixstowe in August, before moving on to talk about his job search quest - this time talking about a job vacancy for a senior role at a dance club that he was looking to apply. I would like to wish him the best of luck in that quest if he goes for it!
By 5:00pm the breakout area was filled with upwards of 40 to 50 people from a wide range of departments across the University, including the Academic Registrar and the Deputy Vice Chancellor, as well as a few people from external organisations who happen to have close business relationships with the University.
Some of the staff I met were old friends from the Grand Finale of the Bootcamp, such as the University's Sustainability Manager, Justine Oakes - where I was asked about the results that I had received from the fantasy map market research. Other people that I had come across at the networking event were people that I had never met in a long time - such as the assistant director of the Student Life department, Chantalle Hawley - but either way, it was all fun and shine along the way.
Whilst the networking was going on, the ribbons were also put up and tied down halfway across the door frame, ready to be cut in about 40 minutes time (with some of the Careers staff occasionally sneaking past the ribbons to get their last bits and bobs out).
Eventually, Professor Gurpreet Jagpal called time on the meet and greet at around 5:20pm - and the event was officially underway! His talk started off by summarising the different teams that helped play a part in making the launch of the Zone - whether that's the University's executives, the various members of the Estates Directorate or the main leaders of the Careers team. At one point he was mentioning some members of the Estates directorate who played a part in making this launch happen - it's quite impressive that a member of the Estates team could achieve their first major project within six months of starting their job!
Then, he moved on to talking about the economic situation for graduates from the University of Suffolk (the great news being that graduate prospects were above average in the higher education sector), before going on to describe the main purpose of the zone - which is to maintain a leading role in the university careers sector by bringing employers, students and University alumni together on their career searching adventures, as well as providing a place to go for advice on starting up businesses and freelancing.
With that being said, it wasn't long before the time came to hand over the conversation to the big boss of Careers, and this is where the secret behind the name is revealed - it's Amy Carpenter!
The subject of that talk was to provide a more deeper insight into what the Zone is able to offer in terms of its services - the most exciting take away from this speech being the ability to use the space to invite employers into the space to talk to students about possible employment opportunities, and to organise other careers-related activities, such as CV surgeries and much more!
Then she decided to talk about the successes of the last intake of summer interns this year (there were eight student interns who were involved in the Careers work placement scheme last summer), which from her point of view, turned out to be the most successful group that the Careers team has hosted since the inception of the scheme.
Unsurprisingly, the Volkert happened to be responsible for one of the interns that I met at the Bootcamp, who actually did an excellent job at that - which only serves to amplify my comments on the Bootcamp blogs about that event being well-organised.
But before we could get to the ribbon-cutting, we all wanted to hear what the interns had to say about the Careers placement program, and so one of them was chosen to come up to the stage to present their experiences. One of the interns was a computing student that had decided to spend some time interning with the team as a data analyst, and some of the most important things that they have learnt from their time included learning how to use other data analysis programs besides Excel, as well as gaining more confidence in delivering presentations to other members of the team.
Overall, I was really proud to hear that the student interns have gained some highly valuable work experience out of the scheme and to be able to walk away with skills that are highly valued by employers in the future - if it weren't for my own personal circumstances during the course of my studies, I wish now that I had applied for one of those when I was a student. But then again, you win some and you lose some in your life.
And then the ribbon cutting ceremony actually happened...
With the ribbon-cutting now finished, it was time to raid the office (that being of course fully endorsed by the big boss) and have a look at what is going on inside. For the first 15 minutes that I was inside, I decided to just walk around and take in the surroundings of the Zone - first of all, starting with the Careers team statistics that were lingering around the room. For this part of the post, I'll mostly let the displays speak for themselves (feel free to click on the images if you want to read the text more clearly):
I wasn't able to get a picture of the Oculus kits as the pods containing the VR headsets were occupied, but here is an inside look at what one of the pods look like:
Next to the cupcake stands, there was a chalk board where we were asked to jot down the best piece of careers advice that they have gotten from a member of the team at the University - it is a great morale booster for the people who work there, but also for the students who are coming in to take advantage of what is on offer at the Zone.
Now I decided to write something about my disability on the board, because I wanted to get out my opinion that people should have the freedom to pursue anything that they are capable of doing, a sentiment that I have spoken about many times before during my conversations in the Careers team - and everyone in the room was really impressed by what I had written!
The image below describes what the board looked like at around 5:45pm. Now it is nearly impossible to read some of what has been written as some of the handwriting is quite small, however there are plenty of nice words being said on this board, as you will see here:
And just in case you were wondering whether the University was hanging up any balloons to mark the occasion, the answer to that is no - the University wanted to be sustainable with the materials they use to put up fixtures for celebrations.
For the last 30 minutes of the event, I decided to return to the Volkert and spend some time with the Bootcamp delegation, and we would spend some time talking about the Bootcamp culture and the journeys that we took prior to the Bootcamp. Our food scientist entrepreneur friend also came along to the event and at one point, we were celebrating another achievement - he got a job working as a chef at a homeless charity restaurant on the eastern side of Ipswich.
At one point, the Volkert had to run off to Justine to answer some queries from one of the bootcamp participants, and so I decided to spend some time exposing my personal identity to other members of staff - it appeared that everyone here seemed to be quite interested in what I had written on this blog in the past and wanted to strike conversations with me about all sorts of different things (the most interesting being my conversation with Anna about a wide range of topics covered on the TV show Pointless).
And let's not forget that there were plenty of delicious cupcakes and flapjacks for everyone to enjoy:
Everybody was having so much fun to the point that the event was over-running by about 15 minutes, and the only cue that the party had come to an end was that staff members were subtly starting to make their way out of the building - at one point, one of the bootcamp participants said "where's Amy?", only to find that the Volkert had suddenly vanished off the radar.
Just as I was getting ready to go, the next image depicts what the chalk board looked like at the session's end, and I was amazed to see that during the time I was hanging out with the other Bootcampers, there were a few more inspirational words that people had written on the board - the phrases that stood out for me included things such as "be bold, be brave", "follow your own route, then lead the way" and "you learn more from getting it wrong than getting it right".
As the dismantling of the Zone launch apparatus was taking place, at around 6:30pm, I happened to come across the Carpenter's husband - and as soon as I was able to talk to him, he almost instantly happened to recognise that I was working on some fantasy maps. So I began asking him "What kind of programs do you use to make your fantasy maps?" - and he responded to me that he works on his maps using Inkarnate - which happens to be the same program that I used to create the Kingdom of Ventura and Lorentia (go check out that blog post of mine if you want to see how I used the program to create that map).
I guess that explains why "big boss" Amy wants to have a piece of the action when it comes to my ambition to create fantasy worlds - with fantasy mapping being a very niche market to run your business in, it's quite unusual to see people working in senior roles of a major organization know someone who is into fantasy mapping and even more so, being very knowledgeable about it.
Once that conversation was over, team photos were taken and I had said my goodbyes to the remaining members of the Careers team that were still about in the building, I began to make my way home - but first, I had to avoid getting squished by the library turnstiles one more time!
When I got to Clarkson Street around 7pm, I was distracted by a phone call from an unknown number - is that a freelancer calling me to discuss a fantasy map project? Apparently not, as I did some research on that unknown number and it turned out to be brand new with over 50 people receiving calls from that number the same day as me - I was beginning to suspect that it might have been a robocall operation. Gotta watch out for suspicious numbers, eh?
The following day, I decided to go out for a little wander around the Orwell Country Park, located three miles south of the University campus, and I sat on a tree branch that doubled up as a bench. From here, I got a really nice view of the Orwell Bridge, with all the trucks whizzing by on the A14 up above, headed to and from Felixstowe port and other parts of the country.
Signing off now,
Jakub
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