Five go to a country house: reflections on developing a residential programme for undergraduate management students.

Fulford, H.; Cargill, E.

Abstract

For the academic year 2015-16, a new route was devised for undergraduate students in year three of their four-year Management degree. This route, denoted 'Connect to Business', was designed to allow students to participate in short work placements in SMEs or Third Sector organisations for two-three days per week. These placements were undertaken alongside a focused programme of personal and professional development, and taught project modules in enterprise and business consultancy. In addition, at the start of the Connect to Business year, the students were given the opportunity to take part in a three-day residential module devoted to a range of enterprise and employability topics. The design of this residential drew on lessons learned from our leadership of residential courses for students on summer placements in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (the ScotGrad Placement Programme) and represented part of our commitment to the embedding of learning from that programme into our own curriculum. The purpose of this paper is to provide a reflective account of the Connect to Business residential programme viewed from both the student and academic perspectives. We include thoughts on programme structure and coverage, benefits realised, and challenges encountered. The points highlighted in this brief paper will be discussed more fully during the conference presentation, and the lessons learned will be discussed. The presentation will include discussion of how the changing learning and employment environment opens up opportunities to offer students new ways of learning and preparing for the world of work.

Citation

FULFORD, H. and CARGILL, E. 2017. Five go to a country house: reflections on developing a residential programme for undergraduate management students. Presented at the 6th Chartered Association of Business Schools conference on learning, teaching and student experience (CABS LTSE 2017), 25-26 April 2017, Bristol, UK.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: 6th Chartered Association of Business Schools conference on learning, teaching and student experience (CABS LTSE 2017)
• Start Date: Apr 25, 2017
• End Date: Apr 26, 2017
• Deposit Date: Mar 22, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 22, 2018
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Keywords: Enterprise; Placement; Career capital; Employability; Assessment centre; Idea generation; Problem solving; Project planning; Reflective practice
• Public URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10059/2817
• Contract Date: Mar 22, 2018