New students came together to network and find out more about the College’s diverse community.
On Monday 23 September, Birkbeck hosted its inaugural event of the One World Festival 2019/20 – a year-long programme designed to celebrate the College’s international community.
The event was introduced by Professor Kevin Ibeh, Pro Vice-Master (International), who offered his congratulations to arriving students. This was followed by a talk from Lucy Robinson from Birkbeck Futures on the importance of networking for career success.
Students were then given the opportunity to put their networking skills to the test at a welcome reception organised by Andrea Williams and La Young Jackson.
This year’s One World Festival is now officially underway with a variety of events planned throughout the year to celebrate and support Birkbeck’s thriving international student community.
On Wednesday 26th June, Union Learning Reps (ULRs) and organisers from unions, including PCS, Unison and USDAW came together for Birkbeck’s first ULR Skills Workshop on the theme of bringing Higher Education to union learners. In this blog, event organiser Sophie Swain of Birkbeck’s Access and Engagement (A&E) reflects on the day and the importance of trade union engagement.
My role as Access and Outreach Officer (Adult and Community) involves supporting trade union members with their transition into higher education. Alongside Birkbeck’s 10% fee discount for trade union members, I coordinate an outreach programme providing information, advice and learning activities for trade union members who do not currently have a qualification above level 4 or whose jobs may be affected by automation.
This outreach work reflects the importance of the trade union movement in promoting learning and development, and I work closely with officials and reps who are involved with supporting trade union members to access further learning.
Together with a toolkit produced in conjunction with unionlearn, June’s event is intended to be the first in a series with the aim of equipping ULRs and organisers with useful knowledge and skills to both help them in their role and in providing advice and guidance for members considering studying at university.
Following an introduction to Birkbeck, attendees at the event took part in a coaching skills session led by Head of Access, Sahar Erfani, in which they were able to put into practice new techniques for supporting members to explore their options around further study. Andrew Liddell from Birkbeck’s Development and Alumni department spoke about Degree Apprenticeships at Birkbeck and Lucy Crittenden of Birkbeck Futures ran a session on how to promote the benefits of higher education to employers. Emily Harber and Andrew Jones of Linking London led an interactive workshop on the various higher education qualifications and the many different entry levels and to finish a number of attendees took part in a campus tour led by a member of Team Birkbeck.
Feedback from attendees was overwhelmingly positive. Sue Lapworth, ULR at PCS’s Criminal Justice Branch in Croydon said “I really enjoyed the event, it was good to learn what Birkbeck can offer our members and to look round the University. I enjoyed networking with other ULRs and the staff at the college, I am in a better position to advise members who may be interested.” Another event is planned for the Autumn.
To find out more about the union outreach work taking place at Birkbeck, email union-learning@bbk.ac.uk or visit http://www.bbk.ac.uk/professional-services/access/trade-union-outreach
Two Birkbeck LLM students are set to compete in the semi-finals of one of the most prestigious and popular mooting competitions in the UK, led by Mooting Co-Ordinator Jonathan Thorpe from the School of Law.
Moot competitions are an ancient method of training lawyers in the art of advocacy, an essential skill for those wishing to practise law. Moots involve two teams, competing in a fictitious appeal case, but in front of a real judge. Teams are scored under several headings – on their ability to interpret and use the law, their skill in presenting legal arguments, and how they deal with questions from the judge during the moot.
Birkbeck Law School runs its own moot training programme each academic year. from which students are selected to compete externally, against other universities, in the major UK moots.
Over the past few years, Birkbeck Law School has had considerable success in the national moots, but LLM students Lewis and Daniel have done exceptionally well this year, beating three highly reputable law schools in legal problems ranging over criminal law, contract law and contempt of court, to reach the semi-finals of OUP.
Further congratulations are due to Lewis, who was recently awarded a full scholarship by Inner Temple Inn of Court to study to be a barrister.
Jenna Davies leads the extracurricular Enterprise activities at Birkbeck and recently took a group of students on the London Venture Crawl, an event aimed at connecting them with businesses and experts.
Wednesday 14 March saw a group of entrepreneurial students from Birkbeck join an event that was unlike any other; six double-decker buses, nine London Universities and over 200 students made up the London Venture Crawl and celebrated everything the city offers to budding entrepreneurs.
Birkbeck teamed up with University of the Arts and the University of East London and transported students to a range of enterprising spaces around the capital to inspire them to pursue their start-up ventures, meet successful entrepreneurs along the way and ultimately check out a snapshot of what London offers on the start-up scene.
The day started bright and early with students ready for the first stop of the day at Campus London, a Google space in Shoreditch. Hearing from Creative Entrepreneurs, an innovative community of creative individuals, the group woke up and boarded the double decker bus that was to be their mode of transport for the day.
On board, they were greeted by serial social entrepreneur Benjamin Western, Co-Founder of Gaggle and indiGO Volunteers to pump them up for the rest of the journey.
The second stop was at Amazon Fashion, catering nicely for the group as they got an insight into the impressive warehouse where all of Amazon’s fashion items go for checking, photographing and packing. A panel discussion with the top operators gave a glimpse into life at the leading online retailer.
Third stop of the day took the group to Grant Thornton, after hearing from their Head of Growth Finance, Sarah Abrahams. Lunch was served and the students met Crate Brewery Founder Tom Seaton who shared his story starting up Hackney’s well-known venue.
The venture continued on to Hello Fresh, the extremely impressive and relatively new organisation that saw its revenues grow from €2.3m in 2012 to €304m in 2015 – here the students met some of the key players at their London hub and toured the quirky space.
The penultimate stop for the group was Innovation Warehouse, a co-working space and community for digital high-growth start-ups. The students were able to hear from the founder Ami Shpiro along with some of the entrepreneurs within the community.
The final stop brought all six buses together where students from across the nine universities to could network over a pizza and beverage while hearing from the inspiring Lawrence Kemball-Cook, founder and CEO of Pavegen, as well as take part in the cross-bus pitching competition. Birkbeck stormed through to the final, with Business Innovation student Bobette Kenge rounding off the day on a high and ending what was an extremely eventful, inspiring event for everyone involved.
Birkbeck Business & French student Jennifer said: “The Plexal building was fantastic, the talk at Grant Thornton with the Founder of Crate Brewery was great and gave an insight into the different types of investments, investors and how it all works, and Amazon Fashion was heaven to me! I would love to come to a similar event again and meet more people.”
This was an incredible opportunity for our students to network with a huge range of fellow London students, plus receive invaluable advice from the speakers throughout the day. The energetic atmosphere lasted right to the end of the day and was fantastic to see.
