Careers and Employability Centre

The Careers and Employability Centre of Sussex has organised ‘Week of Events’ from 31st January 2011 to 4th February 2011 for the benefit of students. The events consist of talks/workshops and give opportunities to the students to meet people from diverse fields. The topics for talks and workshops are:

1. Develop your Networking Skills, 2.Job search strategies, and 3. How to impress employers with your skills and interviews.  These talks are of one hour duration and are held in the afternoon at 1.00 pm.

 The Careers and Employability Centre has also invited speakers and alumni of Sussex to speak on:

1. Careers in the Media, 2.Careers in Development, Charities and Not for Profit,

 3. Careers in Science, and 4.Careers in Government and Public Service.

 The students have wonderful opportunities to listen and to develop network with the speakers over a glass of wine in the evening between 5-7 pm.

Open Day for Undergrad.

Today, 29^th January 2011, the University of Sussex organised an Open Day for the students who will seek admissions to the various undergraduate degree programmes of Sussex in the academic year 2011-2012.  It was a one day programme from 8.30 am to 4.00pm. Parents, students and visitors were expected to report at 8.30am and help themselves to refreshments available on purchase at the various Cafes on the University campus. Between 9.30am and 10.00am all were expected to register and collect the visitor guide and prospectus. The visitor guide provided information about the University like University ranking, facilities on campus, Student support, students’ Union, housing and security, sports and fitness, IT services & the library, campus map, transport and Sussex attractions.

After registrations activities were organised separately for parents and students in lecture theatres and seminar rooms of various schools / Departments and academic buildings. The activities for the parents/guests were-

1.      Free bus tour to Brighton: this was a forty minute bus tour of Brighton with commentary by one of the student volunteers.

2.      Student Life Centre: visit to this centre gave information and advice on personal concerns, student funding, student mentoring and University procedures.

3.      The admission process: half an hour talk (repeated twice) in the lecture theatre that gave an overview of the undergraduate admissions’ time frame.

4.      The transition from College to University: this talk (half an hour, repeated) was on students’ expectations during the first year at University and some advice to parents.

5.      Student finance: this gave information about the current student finance system, scholarships and Bursaries offered to students studying at Sussex.

The following activities were organised for the students.

1.      School academic welcome: this was an introduction to the academic focus within the respective school of study. Every school of study stressed on importance of subject, methods of teaching, learning and career opportunities in the concerned subjects. The seminar method of teaching was demonstrated by involving the students who are seeking admission. This created interest in the minds of these students. Current students studying the same subject were also present to share their experiences with the future students.

2.      Visit to Student Life centre:

3.      Library Tours: there was a twenty minute guided tour of the Library and the facilities available.

4.      Campus tours: this was a thirty minute guided walk to see the facilities and services available.

5.      View Student accommodations: students and parents were able to see the wide range of students’ accommodation on the University campus available for first year students.

6.      Meet Subject Tutors: students could interact with subject tutors. This gave the students more information on the degree programmes.

7.      Sussex sports: there was a talk on sports teams, clubs, classes and training available on the campus. There was an opportunity for students to visit the sports complexes.

8.      There were representatives from student Services including the housing office, career and employability centre, the students’ union and cultural studies.

I found that this helped the students and parents to know the place of study and degree programme before admission.

Feedback on Mathematics Courses

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Postgraduate Open Day

The University of Sussex organised Postgraduate Open Day on 26^th January 2011 in Bramber House. The publicity and online registration for this event was available through the University’s website http://www.sussex.ac.uk/ . This was open from 11.00am to 2.00pm and the activities organised for open day were: 1. Presentations, 2. Talk to academics representing the subjects, 3. Subject talks and 4. School/Department tours. The postgraduate open day provides an opportunity to the parents and students to know more about the University, School/department and  have one to one interactions with the faculty members.

Prof. Robert J. Allison the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University welcomed the admission seekers. In his welcome speech he highlighted on the achievements of the University in academics, research and its position (ranking) in the Universities of UK, EU and in the world. The other presentations were on funding postgraduate study and Doctoral research at Sussex.

The “talk to the academics” were separately organised in big halls for Humanities and Social sciences, and Science, Engineering and Management. The parents and students directly had interactions with the concerned faculty /ies of the School / Department.

In additions to this there were talks on the individual subjects in the seminar rooms. The duration of these talks was half an hour and during this period the faculty stressed more on the areas of research of their department which perhaps to create interest in the minds of students. The subject talks were going on simultaneously in different seminar rooms between 1.00 to 2.00pm.

There were student volunteers to help the University authorities and they were paid £ 7 per hour.

Teaching and Learning Development Unit

The University of Sussex has a Teaching and Learning Development Unit (TLDU). This unit organises and runs courses and events to meet the needs of the faculty in teaching. There is a course on “Preparing to Teach” for the Associate Tutors (ATs). This online course provides information on the structures of Sussex and Higher Education in UK, the role and responsibilities of ATs. This course helps ATs for first and subsequent teaching sessions.

Preparing to Teach at Sussex online course consists of nine topics and under each topic there is a learning activity. The topics covered under this course are: 1. The University of Sussex and Higher Education in UK. 2. The Associate Tutors: employment, induction and expectations. 3. Your first teaching session. 4. Teaching and Learning. 5. Student Support at Sussex. 6. Teaching your subject. 7. Assessment, Marking and Feedback. 8. Next Steps. 9. How was it for you?

Similarly, there is another course on “Starting to Teach” training course. This training course is conducted separately for the ATs of Science subjects and Humanities and Social Sciences. Four workshops are conducted under this training programme which will cover the areas such as planning sessions and supporting students, teaching and learning activities, marking and feedback and evaluating your teaching and course.

 

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