Student finds graduate employment from networking event, thanks to an incentive to become a Senior PAL
A Risk Management student has seen the value in doing extra-curricular activities, thanks to an incentive to become a Senior PAL.
Fourth year Risk Management student Claudia Freel got the chance to attend an industry networking event, after signing-up to help students as a Senior PAL.
PALS (Peer Assisted Learning Support) is a programme designed to help new students by placing them into a groupchat alongside their fellow classmates. New students are joined by Senior PALS, (2nd 3rd or 4th year students) who are available to offer support and advice related to their course.
The opportunity, which was advertised by lecturer Emma Cairney, encouraged students to volunteer to help those who were starting at GCU for the first time. In return, they would get the chance to attend an information session with business consultancy Mott MacDonald.
Risk Management student Claudia Freel took Emma up on her offer and signed up to help. Claudia had never heard of the PALS programme before and liked the idea of helping students familiarise themselves with life at GCU – something she said she would have really benefited from when she was a new student.
Since helping as a Senior PAL, Claudia has enjoyed having the chance to offer support to student starting her course. She said: “Students will often just send a me a message if they have a question about something, and it’s usually on things that I know I’d have struggled with when I was a new student.
It’s just good knowing that they have someone to go to with course related questions, because I know how lost I felt as a first year student – I’d have really benefited from something like PALS! It feels good to be in a position now where I can offer help and advice to new students, especially because I can relate so much to how they might be feeling.”
As a thank you for helping as a Senior PAL, Claudia had the opportunity to attend an open-day with Mott MacDonald – her first real experience of an industry-networking event. She explained: “Our lecturer Emma had sent out an email to let us know about PALS, and she mentioned that if anyone wanted to help as a Senior PAL that we would have the chance to attend some important networking events.
I personally didn’t know how to go about finding networking opportunities, so this was a good chance to go along to one and experience it.”
She added: “The Mott McDonald session was essentially an open day to let you visit the company. They organised some workshops about various topics and you had the option of which ones you wanted to go to. At that point, you almost felt like you were already a part of their team.
I felt as if I really learned a lot from the experience. It taught me a lot about Risk Management in the sense of how it’s applied into a real work environment, rather than just knowing the theory behind it.”
The event proved to be beneficial in more ways than one, after Claudia was offered employment with the consultancy firm after she graduates in 2023.
Claudia, who is also a part of the Risk & Finance Society, appreciates how important extra-curricular activities can be and wants to emphasise how helpful they are in a student’s academic journey. She said: “In terms of networking, it’s a really great way of getting your name out there and meeting people within your industry; you never know who might be able to help you in future!
It’s really good for employers to see that you’re a proactive person, so there’s plenty of benefits of being involved in extra-curricular activities.”
By Rachael McAlonan
Got a SCEBE or GSBS story? Email me at Rachael.McAlonan@gcu.ac.uk or connect with me on social media here