Student Insights and a Guild Perspective on the Graduate Attributes

Simon Clewes (Doctoral researcher / Careers Network) and Vanessa Chigariro (Education Officer, Guild of Students) discuss how student feedback on the Graduate Attributes is being used, and how the Guild is providing opportunities for students to develop Graduate Attributes outside of their curriculum.

The Graduate Attributes will be further introduced to both academic and professional services staff this semester, who will be encouraged and supported to engage with them in a range of ways - with a view to engaging students in relation to their own development. In due course, the aim is for the Graduate Attributes, under the heading of ‘UoB and Beyond: Your Graduate Attributes’, to be embedded across the student experience and thus support our articulation of the broad, far-reaching value of higher education.

Simon Clewes comments: “We are using the student insights collected through focus groups to shape how we engage students with Graduate Attributes. Students told us that they want to see inclusive and diverse images, explanatory but not too text-heavy communications and options to engage with the Graduate Attributes such as text, video and eye-catching images. We are working on creating visual assets using the range of feedback we received from students as inspiration.”

FURTHER RESOURCES

You can find more details on how the Guild supports students with developing attributes on their website, such as through student groups (Student Groups - Guild of Students), through involvement in democracy, committees, standing for different representation roles, and submitting ideas (https://www.guildofstudents.com/representation/), and the student rep system (Student Reps (guildofstudents.com)).

A full list of the Graduate Attributes is available on this dedicated website for staff.