Uni Genius 2024

This quarter we have had a great mix of both in-person and virtual programme activity, as well as some fantastic invitations to speak at conferences, at our partner companies and at the House of Commons. The House of Commons event was a reception and “share and learn”, entitled ‘Levelling up for Real’. This was hosted by the Manchester based UA92 University, founded by footballer Gary Neville, Labour MP for Stretford and Urmston, Kate Green and Conservative MP for Altrincham and Sale, Sir Graham Brady. 

On the programme activity side, a highlight for me was facilitating the Interview Preparation Study Bubble Day for those applying to Oxford and Cambridge. This was a great day of practising mock interview questions and preparing model answers for those questions. Another highlight for our university students has been participating in the October Get Ahead Programmes for our partner companies, in advance of them opening their Internship and Graduate Applications. Our Get Ahead programmes are on offer from July to October and we invite our students to attend as many as they wish in different industries. Companies this month included Legal and General Investment Management, which prepared students for Investment Management roles, and National Grid which assists students with application preparation via one-to-one mentoring. We have found that since launching these Get Ahead programmes in 2020, that many of our students have made successful applications to either the host company or to another company within the same industry. The Get Ahead Programmes can include a mock assessment centre task, a full mock assessment centre, insight talks about the company and industry, video interview practice and talks about each stage of the application process. This is then usually followed by one-to-one mentoring by partner companies.


 I would like to end this month's message by raising your attention to the issue of digital exclusion which I am sure many of you are already aware of. Many people are living in households where they have to share devices with multiple family members or where they cannot afford constant Wi-Fi or data connections to get online. This makes it very difficult for those students to complete school and university work, work experience, internship applications and many courses which are now virtual. We have worked with National Grid’s “Grid for Good” team to support those of our students who are in this situation. We would like to thank National Grid for their generous donation, to 28 Generating Genius students across the country. Many of these students’ families are from households where the  income is £20,000 or below and had to share devices. Please watch this video to see the impact this has made to those students. - Grid For Good & Generating Genius Laptop Donation Campaign - YouTube  We would also like to thank HSBC Digital Business Services who similarly provided  an additional 14 sixth form students on the HSBC Future Genius programme with laptops. Six of these students were on free school meals, and eight students came from households with an income of £20,000 or below. These students did not have their own laptops which were needed to engage in the online aspects of this programme and other year 12 Generating Genius programmes.

Following on from the Interview Preparation and pre-admission test workshops hosted by both Oriel College, Oxford, and St John's College, Cambridge, on both the STEM@Oxford and STEM@Cambridge programmes, we hosted the Student Study Bubbles Interview Preparation Day on Saturday, 29th October. This is where students from both programmes were placed into groups based on their subject or subject areas to practise interview questions, come with model answers and a plan as to how they will continue to prepare for their potential interviews. Many of the students when presenting their preparation plans, also included meeting their group again to go over questions. We wish all 26 of our students the best of luck as they wait to find out if they are invited to interview from Oxford or Cambridge.

57 students participated in this year's programme. This is our second year of running this with Legal and General Investment Management (LGIM). The programme is run slightly differently to other Get Ahead Programmes as it takes place over 3 evenings rather than two full days. The programme covers an Investment Management 101 workshop which goes over what investment management is. The second workshop is an Investment Management Case Study Deep Dive, where students explore different case studies in small groups with a representative from different investment teams at LGIM. The third workshop is run by an external careers coach provided by Generating Genius who provides students with CV and cover letter support, application tips, and also mock interview practice. The fourth workshop is Recruitment Process 101 which goes over the end-to-end process at LGIM and tips on how students can prepare for the different stages. Last year,17 of our students made applications and two students entered the business from the Get Ahead Programme. 

  Google and Generating Genius Software Engineering Mentoring 

We have 21 students, studying Computer Science, Physics, Maths and Engineering degrees, who are currently on our Google mentoring programme. This is the third year of this programme. The aim of the programme is to support students with applying to Google and other Technology companies for Technology Summer Internship roles. The students are given one-to-one mentoring from a Google Software Engineer. This programme has successfully seen 6 students enter Google for Summer Internships. This year's cohort began the programme in September and are two months into the sixth month programme and engaging well. We hope that this year's students will have similar success to previous cohorts.  Thank you to our Google software engineering mentors and the Google People team for all the hard work you are doing on this programme. 
 

We had the pleasure of hosting our Spring Week Launch Event on October 18th. This event is to prepare students for applying to Spring Week Programmes, including the one we run as part of our partnership with Grid for Good. We had 142 students in attendance at this virtual event. The Start your Career at National Grid Panel was one of the highlights, where students got to hear from two current graduates, on successful applications and what kinds of work you do on the graduate programme. The event also took students through how to prepare for the testing and interview process which are common parts of many Spring Week applications. We look forward to hosting another Spring Week in Engineering and Technology with Grid for Good this coming spring. 

Our penultimate and final year students enrolled on our Grid for Good Talent Development Pathway have completed their first month of the 12-week Application Preparation one-to-one mentoring. From the cohort of 19 students on this mentoring programme, three have already submitted applications for National Grid, whilst others are still finalising their CVs with support from their mentors. Good luck to all these students applying for Graduate and Internship roles with National Grid. 

The AKO Foundation is one of Generating Genius’s top sponsors and has supported 100 students on the 2-year STEM Future Leaders programme for sixth formers. Those students have gone on to some fantastic universities and degree apprenticeships. AKO Foundation has now committed to sponsoring students on the relaunching of our Junior Genius programme. This programme will be starting again in summer 2023. AKO Capital employees have also committed to supporting, through mentoring, our STEM@Cambridge programme for sixth formers, and our Black Women into Tech programme for university students. Thank you to the AKO Foundation for your continued support and to the wonderful AKO Capital employees for their volunteer time. 

We also spoke on a panel entitled, “How to make vocational education more inclusive” at the Federation of Awarding Bodies Conference in Leicester. This area is becoming more of a focus for us as we recognise the importance of our model being useful, not just for those who can aim for traditional university courses, but also for those who are more practical, rather than academic, so that they are guided and prepared for competitive applications in vocational courses. It is great that although a new offering for us, our work is already being acknowledged in this space. 

We also spoke on a panel entitled, “How to make vocational education more inclusive” at the Federation of Awarding Bodies Conference in Leicester. This area is becoming more of a focus for us as we recognise the importance of our model being useful, not just for those who can aim for traditional university courses, but also for those who are more practical, rather than academic, so that they are guided and prepared for competitive applications in vocational courses. It is great that although a new offering for us, our work is already being acknowledged in this space. 

Both our year 12s and year 13s have now all completed their work experience programmes from our Generating Genius partners. It was a pleasure last week to receive some brilliant feedback from GHO Capital, HSBC and IRI on how wonderful and knowledgeable they were. Likewise, the feedback from the students has been the best to date and they have all valued the chance to be in the office and work on projects in person.

Our university students have continued to work hard at their summer internships and have been learning how to navigate the workplace. It has been great to receive such brilliant feedback from our partners who have Generating Genius students on how they are doing. 

We are looking forward to supporting our university students to prepare to apply for graduate jobs and summer internships this coming September, ahead of applications opening in Winter 2022 for Summer 2023, via our application preparation programmes. Thanks to Google, HSBC, National Grid and Legal & General for running these exclusive programmes for Generating Genius students, in partnership with us.

Finally, I would like to congratulate all of our STEM Future Leaders students who submitted an entry for the STEM Future Leaders Category Awards. This was the final programme activity on the STEM Future Leaders Programme. Thank you to the AKO Foundation for sponsoring the STEM Future Leaders Uni Genius programme, over the last 2 years. We had a wonderful evening listening to the speeches of the winners followed by networking with AKO Capital, Salesforce and BAI Communications. All the submissions were of an extremely high standard.  The students worked on a one-month project in either Engineering, Technology or Medicine. I would like to say a special congratulations to our winners in each category. 

Uni Genius Network Update

Work Experience with IRI Worldwide

Last week some of our Year 12 students embarked on a week-long work experience with IRI Worldwide, one of the original innovators in Big Data.

We kicked off the week at their brand-new offices in Bracknell which gave the students a taste of what working at IRI is like. The rest of our week was virtual with a full agenda of interactive insight workshops into the work of IRI as well as a group project for the students to get stuck into.  A staggering 23 IRI Volunteers shared their time and knowledge with the students throughout the week providing them a broader perspective on the company and what life is like working in Big Data. As well as sessions on Marketing and Media, the students gained invaluable soft skills which helped them with their final group project presentations at the end of the week. 

Thank you again to IRI Worldwide for an incredible week full of valuable content and unforgettable experiences - we are already looking forward to next year!

Work Experience with HSBC

The HSBC Future Genius summer work experience weeks were brilliant. We had 44 students from the programme participate over the two weeks. The students had a combination of employability skills workshops, networking and real work experience via a week-long project they were set. The HSBC teams were so impressed with the standard of the group projects on both the weeks that they are inviting the students back, in October half-term, to present to the HSBC senior leadership. Well done to our brilliant Future Genius Year 12s. Thank you to HSBC for this incredible work experience programme full of valuable content and unforgettable experiences. The students will return to HSBC’s offices in October and then again next summer for another summer work experience

Work experience with GHO Capital 

Our second year of doing work experience with GHO Capital is now complete. Our students had a wonderful time at this two-week, office-based, work experience. The students were working in both the Finance and Investments teams and did a combination of their own tasks and projects, some shadowing of meetings, and lots of networking. We look forward to a third year, next summer, of this wonderful work experience programme. 

Work experience with Coller Capital 

Coller Capital provided a very hands-on work experience where students were provided insight through a group project supported by the teams at Coller Capital into how you decide on making an investment in a private company. The students also had a wonderful networking lunch with Coller Capital employees and the feedback on the questions asked by them from Coller Capital representatives was great. They were impressed with the inquisitiveness of the questions asked around private equity. 

These are all students from the lowest income bracket in the UK.  Yet we continue to give them the best platform to succeed.  GlobalGiving has enabled us to work with these fantastic partners through funding our Uni-Genius programme.