Ben's finance teaching volunteering

Name: Ben 

Course studied at NTU: Business Studies 

Year Of Graduation : 2017

Organisation name: NTU

What volunteering were you involved in whilst a student at NTU?  Was it course related or to help with a particular career choice?

I volunteered on Santander’s Financial Literacy Scheme at Meden School from 6^th Feb 2015 to 27^th Feb. The project was related to my course, as I am studying International business and this opportunity allowed me to develop my presentation and team working skills. Along with my ability to efficiently communicate information that can be difficult to understand to a specific audience that may not be able to fully grasp the topics that I was communicating.

Has your volunteering helped your employability since graduating?  If so, in what way?

I was involved in two training sessions and was then tasked with creating a presentation with another student and then delivering this to classes of 15-year-old pupils at Meden School. Volunteering has greatly help develop my employability skills as well as my CV as it has shown that I am proactive and diverse. Volunteering has also made me think about my career direction, this is mainly because of the contacts I have made while volunteering. As I was given a small insight into banking I decided to use the contacts I have made to gain some work experience in the banking world, which has made me direct my career approach to this field.

 What advice would you give students when considering taking part in extra-curricular activities such as volunteering?

 I would absolutely encourage people to take up volunteering, for many of the reasons that I have mentioned above, as well as the sense of achievement you get and the fact that you are helping your community as well as yourself. I would continue to volunteer, as the more experience you have, the more you can stand out.

Nicola's 'Art'astic Time Volunteering

Name: Nicola

Course studied at NTU: Sociology

Year of graduation: 2015

Current Job :  Volunteer counsellor

Organisation name: NSPCC’s Childline

What volunteering were you involved in whilst a student at NTU?  Was it course related or to help with a particular career choice?

“I volunteered for the ARTiculate project whilst studying at NTU. I got involved by volunteering with the programme during my first year and then became project leader for two years. The project runs fun arts and crafts sessions on Saturday’s for children from the charity Spiral, who have experienced a close bereavement or domestic abuse at home.

 As a project leader I was responsible for recruiting eight volunteers each academic year to help prepare and run the sessions. I carried out the communication to the parents/guardians of the children, the charity spiral and the Nottingham Trent volunteering team who fund the project. I also undertook safeguarding and leadership training for the role. The project had a great impact on the charity, reducing the waiting list of children not engaged.

Has your volunteering helped your employability since graduating?  If so, in what way?

I choose to volunteer for the programme because I love working with young people and the project stuck out as something really amazing to get involved with. I found giving a little bit of my time to others also had great benefits to me. I was working alongside so many inspirational people, whom I learnt lots of new skills from, all of which made me realise I wanted a career with a sense of purpose within the charity sector.

Therefore, I am just about to start a graduate level job at a youth charity, where I will be delivering a widening participation programme to disadvantaged children and young people. My volunteering experience was a great boost in my application and interviewers were really impressed to hear about the volunteering I had done.

What advice would you give students when considering taking part in extra-curricular activities such as volunteering?

I wanted to keep on volunteering after university and am very excited to start the training course for a volunteer counsellor role at NSPCC’s Childline service. I would advise everyone to do some volunteering whilst at university you will meet amazing people, learn so much and not regret it giving a little bit of your time!”

Jackie's Prison Volunteering

Name :Jacqueline Adedeji 

Course studied at NTU: Broadcast Journalism 

Year of Graduation : 2015 

Current job title: Production Office Assistant

Organisation name: Zig Zag Productions

 What volunteering were you involved in whilst a student at NTU?  Was it course related or to help with a particular career choice?

I was involved in a scheme called The Big Book Share that was based at Nottingham Prison, which involved connecting with prisoners, creating parcels filled with books for their children, talking to them on a personal basis and helping them focus on the future. It wasn't course related but.. I like to scare myself, I always think if you're not scared you're not really living, I aspire to be a television presenter. So I wanted to understand things and life from their point of view, not from the newspapers view or the victim's there's. I won't say it wasn't scary at times because it was, you are with people who you know have the mental capacity to kill you. But it taught me about how the other half live, you hear about prisoners but who knew they were so vulnerable? I don't condone anything they have done but I can understand why they have the mental capacity to hurt others in a way. Because they are hurting inside, hurt people hurt people after all. 

Has your volunteering helped your employability since graduating?  If so, in what way?

I think yes, especially working in a prison, people are really shocked, maybe because I'm female I don't know but people often thought I studied psychology to examine them or something, but when I said no, I study journalism people got really confused.

Personally, when I do interviews for jobs and talk about working in a prison I seem to instantly get the job. I think maybe because people don't expect a 21 year old to have done that, and because it isn't directly related to my career its obvious I'm doing it for a good cause. I have lots of stories about working in the prison as well, incidents that shouldn't really have happened (but did! oops..!) People are quite captivated by them, I guess people are really interested in me knowing I have done that.

 What advice would you give students when considering taking part in extra-curricular activities such as volunteering?

I would say, do something that can help the community that can teach you more about not just yourself, but others. I come from London so for me Nottingham is tiny, but I was intrigued into this little community how everybody is so tight knitted, I thought it was absolutely brilliant! I learnt so much about people, people make the world go round and truthfully you don't know who needs you - everyone needs someone. Do something that gives you the chance to change somebody's life for the better, do something that takes you out of your comfort zone that forces you to be stronger, because life is about growing you have to do things that are outside your norm to be successful. 

If you want to read more on Jackie's time with prison here's a link to her blog.

Callum's Year of Volunteering

Name: Callum

Course studied at NTU: Computer, 
Science and Mathematics

 Year of graduation: 2017

 Organisation name: National Video-game Arcade

What volunteering were you involved in whilst a student at NTU?  Was it course related or to help with a particular career choice?
I currently volunteer at Nottingham City Museums and Galleries, whose sites include Nottingham Castle and Wollaton Hall amongst others. I started my volunteer journey before university during my gap year, I realised I wasn’t very good at anything really (or rather I didn’t really have any opportunities to find out if I was good at anything) so was keen to try my hand at anything, everything really.

I joined a variety of volunteer projects, I wasn’t too sure what I wanted to do. Some of the projects I joined where wonderful but required me to commit too much time (knowing that I would be joining university). Some were good experiences but not really what I wanted to do, it turns out that in the end the project that I didn’t think I would enjoy suited me perfectly!

Has your volunteering helped your employability since graduating?  If so, in what way?

As I said earlier I currently volunteer (and have for around 4 years now) at Nottingham City Museums and Galleries, or more specifically on their Illuminate group, which is a young people group that work on a variety of projects at the museums. I do other things too, but this is my core volunteering there.

The experiences I’ve gained have not only helped me grow as an individual but also have given me a plethora of work skills. Last summer I applied for a job at the National Videogame Arcade, I remember in the interview rather than not having enough to say having far too much. I gained all this experience that didn’t really feel like work and it helped me get a job at the National Videogame Arcade.

What advice would you give students when considering taking part in extra-curricular activities such as volunteering?

I just wanted to note how much I appreciate the volunteering team here at NTU. While I didn’t need assistance finding the volunteer work knowing that there only an email/phone/visit away to help me with any problems is very reassuring, so if you’re unsure on something or want to try out something new there to help.

There’s this notion that volunteer work is for the elderly or just working behind a till in a charity shops. It’s not at all, it’s for everyone and the experiences are so varied. Volunteer work has quite literally change my life, it has given me some wonderful opportunities, I have grown as a person and feel confident when I leave university that the skills and experiences I have had will help me secure full time employment.”

If you would like to volunteer at Nottingham City Museums and Galleries like Callum you can log on to FutureHub to view their opportunities: https://futurehub.ntu.ac.uk/students/organisations/jobs/96099 or view a range of other volunteering roles here: www.ntu.ac.uk/volunteering 

Anna's Volunteering Experience

 Name: Anna 

 Course studied at NTU: Fine Art

 Year of graduation: 2014

 Current job title: Post Graduate student - MA Art Psychotherapy

 Organisation name: University of Hertfordshire

What volunteering were you involved in whilst a student at NTU? Was it course related or to help with a particular career choice?

I volunteered with the following projects whilst a student at NTU:

Headway Nottingham -  A weekly volunteer throughout 2nd and 3rd year.  This experience helped build up my hours of experience to gain entry to my MA. 

Radford Care Group - Project manager of a 6 week student-led project called ‘Therapeutic Art’.  This was part of a 2nd year teamwork module.  Although the project was assessed by the course it did really contribute to my MA application. 

Mural Painting - A one day joint project to create a mural on an elderly man’s wall.  This experience was advertised to the course and did relate to my career choice. 

Has your volunteering helped your employability since graduating?

Without these experiences I wouldn't have been offered a place on to my MA when I applied.  My volunteering provided me with relevant experiences which will hopefully make me more employable after I graduate again.  They have already supported my MA course and these experiences aided my application for my two MA placements. 

What advice would you give students when considering taking part in extra-curricular activities such as volunteering?

I really recommend spending a few hours a week volunteering with the same organisation.  This time not only helps distract your from your course but you also get to experience another side of being a student in Nottingham.  It would make it far more enjoyable if you chose a project or organisation that you have a personal connection with or that relates to your course/career path.  At the same time as helping others through your volunteering, you can also help yourself by being a stronger candidate for employment opportunities. 

A student’s perspective #Grads4nottm

Part 2 The company

   Log of how the week passed


Day 1

Information pack given

Information pack given

Following some careful navigation to the Boots site, on the outskirts of Nottingham. I was welcomed into a large room with a lot of other students. After a short wait, we were introduced to a manager working at Boots and a recent graduate working in Nottingham. They both gave us a small speech on how they managed to get into their jobs and about the benefits of working in Nottingham.


After these came a few ice-breaker  activities and a small welcome pack before we were introduced to our companies. It was an exciting moment, as we didn't know which company had issued which challenges. [I’m assuming this was probably to stop bias at the application stage as there was a mix between small and large companies and everyone would want to work for a big one.]  The company I was working for was a medium sized logistics company called Prolog, and I wasn’t the only one. After talking to our team leaders, Tim and Matt (Prolog), I found out I was working with a group of people doing other challenges.

 The group was consisted of:

Megan – Project Manager
Ryan, Michael and Sam – responsible for the SWOT analysis
Jason and Kwadwo working on web design
Me – responsible for benchmarking


After our initial face to face and a brief overview of the company, my team and I left after swapping numbers and arranging how to get to Prolog the next day.


 Day 2- 4


Waking up early, at 6 am I prepared myself for a long day. My new team had decided the day before that we would go together to Prolog in Megan’s car early the next morning. [ All participants’ commutes were different, depending on the company they worked with.] Prolog was just outside the city centre so we had a little further to travel and had to plan for this in advance. Arriving at 8 am, we proceeded to have our photos taken for our ID cards. Before filling out disclaimer forms, so we didn’t disclose any information about the company to their competitors.

After being given our photo ID’s to allow us to swipe in each morning, we were led on a tour of the facilities. As it was a logistics company, it was large, covering over 6 different sites and holding products from a variety of different partner companies. We were shown the range of methods used to process products and finally, taken to where we would be working for the next 3 days. Our team had an office to work in, fully set up with pens, paper, a flip-chart and computers. After compiling all our notes on the company we had gathered so far, we started work. As I was working on a bench marking analysis, my work was closely linked to the SWOT analysis. This meant I worked a lot throughout the days with Ryan, Sam and Michael.

The challenge passed very quickly as our whole group were very focused and enjoyed the work. We soon made light work of our challenges, finding lots of different ways to improve the company.

Final part coming soon...

The Presentation