Risk management students launch new clinic in line with Common Good goals
MSc Risk Management students are volunteering to facilitate a risk management clinic – open for the GCU and wider community to receive assistance and advice.
Students, staff and members of the public will have access to support from GCU’s Risk Management students in the launch of their new clinic.
The opportunity was presented to students by Professor Dr Josephine Adekola, who has now left GCU, as a pilot project and students jumped at the opportunity to gain professional industry experience.
The group is primarily led by MSc student Jennifer Chiu and will aim to provide help to whoever needs it – in order to achieve the University’s Common Good mission as well as gaining hands on experience that will enhance students’ professional skills.
We spoke to Jennifer about the group’s first client, Public Engagement Coordinator at GCU Susan Grant and how the team helped advise Susan on managing risk in her job at the university.
Jennifer explained; “We met with Susan, she sent us a whole load of information over and we just peppered her with questions to find out really what it was she wanted.
From speaking to Susan, we gathered that she does so many different things with different events, and she basically just needed a bit of help streamlining her risk assessment process.
So, after our first meeting with her, we went away and tried to find solutions to what we thought would be her problems.
We then presented to her what we thought were solutions – we presented our methodology and we basically asked her if this matched up with what she needed.”
Risk management is an important subject that many people may not be familiar with – so Jennifer explained what working in ‘risk’ actually means and why anyone could consider seeking advice and consultation.
She explained; “We all face risks every day, and the goal is not to completely eliminate risk but to help people survive and thrive in a risky world.
We are helping people do their jobs safely, minimise risks and to grasp the opportunities that come with those risks.”
She added; “The way we often describe it is – if you’re about to cross the road, there’s all these risks… you might get run over, you could get hit with a car, you might get injured but you have to cross the road because you need to get to where you want to go.
So, the things that could mitigate those risks are; you could push the button, you can look both ways before crossing – and those are all the things that could transfer to what you would do with running an event.”
For most of the students volunteering in the project – they have yet to experience working professionally in the risk management industry.
Jennifer explained how beneficial this opportunity is for students to put the skills they have learned at university to use in a realistic setting.
She said; “It’s a really great opportunity to bridge the gap between education, theoretical and practical.
For us students to be given a project where we were in charge from the conception of the idea right through to the end and to manage the project – it’s an incredible opportunity.
It felt good to be trusted with it – we felt honoured and especially getting really positive feedback on our work.”
Students facilitating the clinic shared their feelings on this unique opportunity.
Tayana Kabasa said; “I felt the Risk Clinic was an excellent opportunity for us, the students, to showcase our skills and apply our knowledge based on what we have been taught in the MSc Risk Management programme.
It also gave us an insight as to what it may be like in the future dealing with clients, liaising with managers and colleagues in a professional environment.”
Sarath Madhu Kumar added; “'The Risk Clinic gave me a good experience in understanding the practical part of risk assessment and documentation, which will be an add-on advantage for me in my budding stage.
The pioneer team members all had a good mutual understanding which lead to the timely completion of the project."
By Rebecca Meechan