Disruption, Resistance, Engagement The creative journey at Libby Anson Student Employability & Enterprise Manager Introducing the contradictions we negotiate on a daily basis re postgraduate employability in a small specialist institution
Disruption, Diversity, Responsibility, Place, Collaboration Working on a new Strategic Plan 2018-2021/23 GSA Strategic plan 2015-18
Including: Fine Art, Fine Art Practice (Mlitt), Research in Creative Practices, Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art) School of Fine Art
Including: Fashion & Textiles, Communication Design, S&J, Design Innovation & Citizenship, Product Design Engineering School of Design
School of Simulation & Visualisation Including: Serious Games & Virtual Reality, International Heritage Visualisation, Medical Visualisation and Human Anatomy, Sound Design for the Moving Image School of Simulation & Visualisation
Mackintosh School of Architecture Including: Architecture (DipArch), Architecture by Conversion, Architectural Studies, Environmental Architecture Mackintosh School of Architecture
School of Innovation (on stream 2017) Proposals for electives include: Visual Mapping, Embodiment and Reflexivity as Design Research Tools, User Centred Research for Design, Design Ethnography in Practice School of Innovation (on stream 2017)
GSA Postgraduate Leaver Destinations 2014/15 216 postgraduates completed the DLHE survey 2014/15. This represents 44.6 % of the overall GSA DLHE response: 51 Fine Art (Employability Indicator 75%) 67 Architecture (Employability Indicator 91%) 27 Digital Design (Employability Indicator 67%) 55 Design (Employability Indicator 80%) 16 Research & FoCI (Employability Indicator 100%) Eg. 75% of the 51 FA grads in positive destinations – f/t, p/t, freelance, voluntary, full-time study Digital Design go into very specialist niche positions – in Heritage and Medical Visualisation which is why lower employability DLHE 2014/15
A word from our Careers Advisor Postgraduate students need: To develop their professional networks more quickly; Employability sessions delivered early on network development and job hunting; The facts: International students working in this country re visa requirements etc and preparing to work back home; Transitional skills: researching how the job market in the UK or their home countries recruits; Support to prepare for an innovation-led economy; To develop commercial awareness and business acumen; To promote many and various paths for creative practice; Early stage professional and business development support. Often postgraduate students – including a greater proportion of international students than undergrad programmes – are less well prepared re creative sector professional development, employability and enterprise than undergrads because a lot of them have done non-creative first degrees or have come from other institutions whose approach to employability and enterprise teaching may be different to GSA’s or they may have had none at all. A word from our Careers Advisor
The challenge for the creative sectors – especially Fine Art SMEs are unlikely to be trusted sponsors for Tier 2 visas as the graduate needs to be earning £20,000+ and the SME needs to make an application. Bigger companies (architectural practices/design companies*) are more likely to sponsor international postgrads. Out of the 705 GSA graduates (including postgrads) surveyed, 175 of these were international. Only 71 out of the 175 were collected (40%) Out of that 71: 10% were unemployed (all postgrads); 35% were going on to further study: *55% were employed in Architecture and Design jobs. DLHE 2015/16
The GSA creative journey Hurrahs!! Learning by doing; Studio-based learning; Employability skills are implicit throughout studio practice across the School; Most programmes work on live projects with external partners; Most full-time and part-time academics, associate lecturers, visiting speakers and technicians are practitioners; Students have many opportunities for competitions, commissions and jobs. The GSA creative journey
The GSA creative journey Not so hurrah What we teach may not be what the students learn; Employability learning is not explicit; Many graduates struggle to articulate the employability and enterprise skills they have developed during their HE; Some academics believe students should be taught their subject, not trained for the job market; Specific employability teaching is extra curriculum. It is neither mandatory nor credit-bearing; Some students see the commercialisation of their work as inherently ‘evil’… or ‘creatively crippling’. The GSA creative journey
Students want to make stuff happen! … and yet… ‘Making stuff happen’ – a student’s definition of enterprise Students want to make stuff happen!
Thought for the day
….So, strategies include: Delivery of two electives: Preparing to do Creative Business and Business Skills & Creative Entrepreneurship (each currently worth 15 credits); Delivery of The Business of You and The Business of You – Two sessions; Support for students to enter competitions such as the Deutsche Bank Awards for Creative Enterprise, Converge Challenge, Enterprise Campus and Scottish Edge; Collaboration with external agencies to present opportunities e.g. Test Unit; Saltmarket regeneration project; Artful Innovation programme; Me and the Careers Advisor are moving from the Learning & Teaching team, to the Research & Enterprise department. - PGT electives re undergoing a review and redesign. For 2019/20 some electives will be core to respective programmes, some will be inter-school – i.e. between subject areas within schools, some will be intra-school, som will be delivered extra to GSA – i.e. outside of GSA – eg. GU. To encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration and innovation. - The GSA intends to become part of the creative ecology of Glasgow. Keeping graduates and postgraduates in Glasgow needs support via regeneration of the creative jobs sector market – how can GSA contribute to this? Working with the GSA Students Association to generate student-led initiatives Creating demand
l.anson@gsa.ac.uk