Look Back for the Future

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Sussex is leading the way in student development with a new scheme designed to improve students' skills and employability. The 'Look Back for the Future' project - which is still in its pilot stage - has already attracted widespread attention as a model of good practice from universities and employers across the country.

Designed to encourage students to reflect on skills they have acquired through a range of extra-curricular activities, such as volunteering in the community or running sports clubs, the project aims to help them get the most out of what they already do. With the support of staff, students are encouraged to develop contacts through networking and to think about their activity in terms of how it will contribute towards a career. They fill in a detailed log on a weekly basis and attend workshops and supervision sessions. At the end of the project, they will be awarded a certificate to prove they've taken part.

The project partners believe that students who take part in extra-curricular activities can gain important transferable skills. According to project manager Andrea Baldwin, the scheme, which is a collaboration between several different university departments, is "unique within Higher Education; there's nothing quite like it." Fifty students who take part in diverse activities - from working as Residential Advisors and acting as mentors in schools to those with part-time jobs - are guinea pigs on the pilot.

It is tempting to suggest that students already know that being a Residential Advisor will look good on their CV, that this would be a primary motivation for involvement anyway, and therefore such a scheme might be superfluous. Andrea, the Students' Union's Student Development Worker, refutes this argument. She points out that "Research has shown there is a whole range of reasons for people to volunteer. Personal development is one identified reason, but other significant reasons are altruism and the opportunity for making new friends. Even if someone becomes a Residential Advisor purely for their CV, they may not actually know how to translate what they're doing into the process of identifying skills."

Andrea hopes that the pilot project, funded jointly by the DfEE/ Student Training and Development in Action (STADIA) and the University's Teaching and Learning Development Fund, "will expand until it becomes available to absolutely everybody." She says "Employers are already starting to learn about it, and when knowledge of the project becomes widespread, they will find it valuable. It's already exceeded my expectations in terms of recognition in the field of student development."