1. 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

2. Disruption, Diversity, Responsibility, Place, Collaboration
Working on a new Strategic Plan /23
GSA Strategic plan

3. Including: Fine Art, Fine Art Practice (Mlitt), Research in Creative Practices, Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art)
School of Fine Art

4. Including: Fashion & Textiles, Communication Design, S&J, Design Innovation & Citizenship, Product Design Engineering
School of Design

5. 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

6. Mackintosh School of Architecture
Including: Architecture (DipArch), Architecture by Conversion, Architectural Studies, Environmental Architecture
Mackintosh School of Architecture

7. 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)

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. Students want to make stuff happen!
… and yet…
‘Making stuff happen’ – a student’s definition of enterprise
Students want to make stuff happen!

14. Thought for the day

15. ….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