Tag Archives: MSc

“Coaching has given me the tools to support wellbeing and help people find happiness in their work”

Sarah Wissing graduated from the MSc Career Management and Coaching in 2020. She shares her #BBKStory.

I’ve always been drawn to supporting people and their welfare – on a night out, I’m that person who makes sure everybody gets home safe! In my role in HR, I’m interested in helping people develop and giving them the tools to flourish at work.

I’d known about Birkbeck’s MSc Career Coaching for a few years and finally decided to take the plunge after going along to an open day and meeting the Programme Director Janet Sheath, who was really lovely.

Studying for a Master’s part-time whilst working full-time was quite intense – there was a lot less going out to the pub! Luckily, my work was very supportive and the temporary sacrifice to my personal life was definitely worth it.

My undergraduate degree was in English and French and I’d done a Master’s in English ten years before starting the MSc, but this course was completely different. I remember totally freaking out in my first term when I failed my first essay, but Janet was really great and Birkbeck’s study support tutors were so helpful and I ended up graduating with a merit.

During our coaching weekends there’d be about ten of us and our two tutors – we did practical sessions where we coached each other and received real time feedback. We really got to know each other and it was a very supportive environment.

I also completed a placement in Birkbeck’s Careers Service, where I was assigned students to coach and given supervisions to talk about any challenges I was facing in that role.

The coaching skills I’ve gained on the course and the insight through my research project on Dyslexia in the workplace has really supported me at work: I love helping people to work at their best and am particularly excited about supporting neurodivergent individuals. Alongside my current role, I also operate as a freelance coach.

Studying coaching has made me an all-round better human – it’s about being an ethical person, in and out of work, and making people feel at ease. It equips you with the tools to support wellbeing and help people find happiness in their work and personal lives in an evidence-based way.

I never really have a five-year plan and the Master’s was the same, it just felt like the right thing to do at the time, and I’ve really enjoyed the process of studying and being at university again – nothing bad can come from a bit of education!

Further information:

Occupational Psychology at Birkbeck: the early years

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This post by Gerry Randell, Emeritus Professor of Organisational Behaviour, University of Bradford, was originally published in 2009.

The first master’s students in Occupational Psychology in Britain graduated from Birkbeck 50 years ago this October: I was one of them.

A postgraduate diploma in industrial and commercial psychology had been on the statutes of the University of London since the 1920s, mainly at the instigation of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology and taught by and tailored to the Institute’s staff. Alec Rodger had been on the staff of the NIIP in the 30s and had risen to be Head of Vocational Guidance. In the early years of the war, most of the NIIP staff were drafted into the services, mainly to work on personnel selection. Alec became the Senior Psychologist for the Admiralty. After the war he was appointed Reader in Occupational Psychology (a term he invented) at Birkbeck and set about resuscitating the old diploma course. He published an article in Occupational Psychology in 1952 describing and explaining the curriculum for the new ‘Postgraduate Diploma in Occupational Psychology’ that he had just established. It was probable that the first students on this course were young NIIP staff and Alec’s friends. One of them was Peter Cavanagh whom Alec had spotted as someone who had scored particularly well on the Navy’s selection tests and had somehow arranged for him to be allocated to the Senior Psychologist’s Department. Subsequently Peter joined Alec at Birkbeck as his first Lecturer in Occupational Psychology.

A diploma, not being an attractive qualification for budding occupational psychologists, was not pulling in the students in the early 50s, so Alec then set about manoeuvring for it to become a masters and recruiting students on the strength of that. He happened to be the UG External Examiner for psychology at Nottingham at that time and persuaded two of the students he examined to sign up for the 2 year part-time MSc/MA to be course, Peter Henderson and I. When we turned up at Birkbeck in October 1956 there was a third student on the course, Russell Wicks from UCL. There was also a ‘visitor’ – Mrs Hussein from India – who would be ‘sitting in’; over the years Alec was very welcoming to ‘visitors’ from all over the world. We assembled in room 408 on the top floor of the college from 6 to 9, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

During the year, the Diploma was turned into a Master’s degree, so the three of us had to re-register and look forward to an extra year of attendance! In 1957 eight new students enrolled and joined in the lectures/ discussions with us, in 1958 a further nine enrolled. After submitting our dissertations in September, eight of us graduated in October 1959, Professor Leslie Hearnshaw of Liverpool being the External Examiner. Of the three of us in cohort 1, Russell went on to teach at Surrey, Peter to Queens Belfast and I stayed on at Birkbeck as Alec’s first Assistant Lecturer.

Further Information:

Department of Organizational Psychology

What’s the best way to raise funds for a startup?

Angels and venture capital

When Alexander began fundraising for Blind Cupid, a matchmaking app that uses systematic philosophy and artificial intelligence to match users based on their fundamental values, he took a traditional route of approaching angels (high net worth individuals who provide financial backing for startups) and venture capital firms.

“We contacted many venture capital companies and had some very successful conversations with them,” explains Alexander. “These companies are usually specialists in a certain field and it’s common to be asked to deliver as many as five or six presentations to secure funding. While we would obviously spend some of this time talking about the business idea, the key thing to get right was the financial information.”

The downside of this method of fundraising? Time.

“Venture capital funders are demanding and even getting a response from them, never mind retaining their interest, requires a lot of time and effort,” explains Alexander. “There’s a lot of back and forth, often with your whole team needing to attend calls or presentations, which can feel never-ending when you’re in it.

“We also faced difficulties with our product not fitting neatly into a specialist area. The app we’re developing combines matchmaking with brand new artificial intelligence that has never been built before, and so there are no investors currently specialising in it. Given the amount of money that venture capital funds invest, it’s understandable that they would prefer to go with something tried and tested. We raised around half the funds we needed through this method, but I began to look for alternatives to speed things up.”

Gaining crowd appeal

Many different methods of fundraising are covered in the Entrepreneurial Venture Creation module taught at Birkbeck, among them crowdfunding.

Alexander admits to being sceptical to this approach: “I had the impression when I started that crowdfunding was on a smaller scale and more about conventional ideas than disruptive new businesses – I had no idea that companies do their series A and series B rounds on crowdfunding.”

While individual investment amounts can be much smaller, as little as £10, on crowdfunding sites, Alexander now sees this as an opportunity:

“Compared to venture capital, crowdfunding is a really quick and innovative way to finance startups,” he says. “The main difference is that our investors through crowdfunding are likely to also be our users, which is really exciting. Even if they only invest a tiny amount, they will benefit from a future IPO – it’s similar to holding shares in the stock market.”

The personal touch is also something that appeals to Alexander and the ethos of Blind Cupid:

“We aren’t just trying to match people together; we really want to make sure that these matches are accurate and that once you meet someone you will stay together. We’ve done it for 80% of our beta test users, and now we want to do it throughout the rest of the UK and world. It’s an unusual business concept in a way, because we don’t want people to come back – we want people to find the person that’s right for them.

“Our business model is very different from other players in this market because of this — and other reasons. We offer a premium service which gives our users access to podcasts, blogs and more written by experts that advise them on every aspect of their lives. Topics include how to discover who you really are, what self esteem is and how to build it, how to nurture a healthy relationship and more.”

Blind Cupid have now launched their crowdfunding campaign on Crowdcube. For Alexander, it will be a relief to move to the next stage:

“When you’re looking for funding, it feels like it’s never-ending, but I know that when it’s complete I‘ll forget the months that it took. Many things in life are a learning curve and you find what suits you best. It’s great to finally see it all come to life.”

Birkbeck Perspectives

Birkbeck experts and students share their opinions on a diverse range of thought-provoking topics.