With the new academic year well underway, the first Future Focus workshop was held at the Bloomsbury campus this month, as part of a series of five workshops that support mature learners with advice and guidance on career prospects.

It’s the start of the new academic year and our very own version of the ‘New Year, New Me’ mantra dawns on Birkbeck; a chance for us to contemplate our goals and the tangible steps we need to take in order to get there. Deciding those next steps can always be made a little clearer with the support and guidance of others and attending Future Focus, a workshop organised by Birkbeck’s Widening Access team and designed and delivered by the Careers and Employability team, is a great place to turn to for that.

The first Future Focus workshop of the academic year took place in early October. Delivered by Birkbeck’s Employability Consultant & Events Manager, Alex Jones, attendees were encouraged to use the time to reflect on their motivation, decisions and skills, and whether the next step they were about to embark on fed into these goals. In our busy lives, taking the time to consider and plan, is all too often swept under the carpet, pushed for another day.

By coming along to Future Focus, attendees gave themselves the headspace to contemplate, make informed choices and seek the motivation and confidence to take those exciting first steps.

One of last year’s Future Focus participants, Ana de Monchaux, talks about her experience of attending the workshop:

“My son was applying to university and in the process for this I had got on the Eventbrite mailing list. One of the events promoted was a Future Focus workshop at Birkbeck University. I had been toying with the idea of going to university to study history but I was unsure whether I was too old and would not fit in. I had done a couple of modules with the Open University but had found the lack of face to face time quite isolating, so I didn’t want to feel isolated in a room of younger people.

I had heard really good things about Birkbeck so the Future Focus workshop seemed the ideal opportunity to test the waters! The workshop looked at what kind of career you could get with a degree in your chosen subject. If you just wanted to study for study sake that was okay but it gave you an idea of what you could do.

Everyone was very welcoming and the demographic was varied, I did not feel the oldest one there. Some people wanted a career change, some wanted to enhance and progress in their chosen career and some just wanted to study a new subject. We were asked what we liked about our present job, if we were working, and what we didn’t like. It made me realised that it was interacting with people that I liked the most and being self-employed I liked the least. It also made me see that I could change my career if that is what I wanted to do.

What the Future Focus workshop did, was to give me the confidence that I was not too old and that I had something to offer and that I could go to University. I applied and got in!”

If you’re thinking about your future and the tools you need to get there, sign up to the next session!

If you have any questions or want to find out more, contact the team.