We started by surveying what companies and organisations would be most interesting for our student population, and how they would benefit from such a visit. Based on these results, we searched for companies that were willing to host a large group of students on location and provide this experience. The most difficult part was the planning uncertainty because of dynamic COVID restrictions and finding a company that was willing to host us all onsite.
I was in charge of reaching out to companies and planning the visit. Others on the team were working on budget and promotional aspects. In the early stages we were reminded during a project inspiration session that one of the most important aspects of project design was to ensure it was catered to our target group’s needs. So we used the Design Thinking principles we learned about in Study & Career and also looked into existing initiatives to make sure we weren’t reinventing the wheel.
The main skills I developed were networking and leadership. For me it was a great way to try organising our own event. Challenges we faced were mostly the measures due to the pandemic, but also synchronising each other’s schedules. Finally, it showed me that you sometimes just have to try new things. The visits were a success! Putting yourself in the driver seat with such a project also teaches you more than merely attending a career event because there is a lot of networking and learning going on behind the scenes.
“It showed me what to look for when planning an event between multiple stakeholders and how to communicate professionally.”
I would advise future students to look for something that they either wanted to do or missed during their Master’s until now. For me this was looking for industry career options and zooming in one of the options so I could confirm my choice. The visits finally helped confirm my decision to leave academia after my master studies and I've since started working at a company within clinical research. One final piece of advice for project teamwork: always think about specific risks and potential alternatives: there’s more than one road to your end-product.
