Professor Stéphanie Panichelli-Batalla >> Hello everyone and welcome to this Global Sustainable Development Overview Session. I'm Stéphanie Panichelli-Batalla, I'm the Head of the School for Cross-faculty Studies and I'm also the Academic Director for Global Sustainable Development. I will be introducing this session, but it will be mainly led by my colleagues and our lovely student ambassadors today.

What I will do before I ask my colleague Romain to take over is to introduce you to the team that we have here today. As I said, I'm the Head of the School for Cross-faculty Studies and I'm here today with Romain Chenet - he's our Director of Student Experience in GSD. I'm also here with Dr Jessica Savage, she's a Senior Teaching Fellow in GSD but she's also the Deputy Head of School for GSD. We have Bodrun who will be joining us very soon, she is our Employability and Placement Manager, and then as I said we have two student ambassadors. We have Szebasztián and Lucía who will both be talking about their experience here in GSD and also about the GSD community at Warwick.

The agenda for today's session is: we will start with an introduction about 'what is global sustainable development?' and how do we understand global sustainable development here in the School. We'll then move on to information about the teaching methods that we use, but also how the course is structured. Then we'll talk about the single honours degree and the joint honours degrees that you can study with us. Romain will then say a bit more about the student support available within the School and then Bodrun will take over and talk about the professional development opportunities that you will have when studying with us. Then we'll go back to Romain who'll tell you a little bit more about the international opportunities and then we'll talk about the student community and that's when you will have some input from our students about this. We'll end with some practical information about how to apply, entry requirements etc. and then of course there is time afterwards for questions that you might have. So please do feel free to use the chat during the session, if we can answer questions during this session we will in the chat, otherwise we'll make the most of the Q&A session at the end to answer questions that require a bit more explanation. Romain, are you happy to take over from now?

Romain Chenet, Director of Student Experience >> Absolutely, thank you so much for that wonderful introduction Stéphanie and can I just say a big welcome again to all of you for joining, we really appreciate your time and hopefully being able to learn a bit more about GSD as we cover an overview of the course for you today. So again, welcome, and let's go into the next slide (and it worked!).

Okay, so let's start by considering 'what is GSD?' So when we consider this question, there may be many potential answers and there are many answers. The best way that we start expressing it is by focusing on the 'three pillars of global sustainable development' and this is something that we also use in our research because we have a transdisciplinary approach. If we consider that Agenda 2030 is built on pillars and three different development focuses, that also moves into our teaching and the way in which we approach the topic of development, of global or sustainable development today. Simply put, this is based on the idea that development must address not just economic or social or environmental challenges, but do all of them in unison, in an integrated way. This speaks to our transdisciplinary focus and because of that we are quite a unique and I would say quite exciting and innovative School because we focus on contemporary challenges. We have a real focus on not just working in silos (as in one very specific discipline, with very specific limited potential topics in it), but we actually open up. I would like to say we vulnerably, sometimes, encounter the complexity of how development is set up today and what we are aiming to do here.

We do this through our teaching methods, which as I mentioned are 'transdisciplinary' which is perhaps a bit of jargon. What it essentially means is that we approach it without being locked into a very specific disciplinary boundary, by which I mean disciplines such as 'Development Studies' or 'Politics' or 'Arts' or 'History' or 'Sociology'. As you've seen hopefully, our joint honors degrees do speak to this, that capacity to work across different disciplines. In our teaching itself, we use a problem-based and solutions-focused method. Again, it might be a bit jargonistic, but all it really means is that we focus our teaching on particular challenges, particular themes, that are very relevant and very important in development today. Whether that be economic, if you think about poverty which is also social, and then of course poverty has environmental impacts as well. So you can start seeing how we may approach certain topics such as climate change which is a big scary one, or very specific ones such as urbanisation, with the use of case studies that focus on particular experiences in the developing world.

Now, one important note here is that the developing world is no longer just what we would have considered it to be in the past. All countries under Agenda 2030 are in a development journey and because of that, our research and our teaching focuses will span the globe. We are truly a Global Sustainable Development Department because we are considering this from a global perspective. Our teaching is research-led, which can mean two things. One, it means that our teaching is based on well-regarded and important academic research that is done in development studies and related disciplines and it's also led by our own research interests. We will all have modules in the team that speak to our research areas and topics of particular focus. What that means is that when you learn in GSD, when you're a student in GSD, you are benefiting from the expertise that we have, as well as other contemporary and important research that is going on in this very complex and interesting field.

We also consider students as being firmly, definitely researchers and collaborators in the learning experience. There is a term that my colleague Jess (who just popped up on the screen now) likes, which is called 'partners in the learning process' and I've taken it on board as well because it expresses how we want to and like to approach the teaching and learning experience. Students have the capacity to pursue research projects, not just in our modules but also more broadly within the University and have done so very effectively in the past. Our teaching provision is quite varied as well. We will have lectures that are what you might consider in some ways the more kind of traditional form of teaching, but we try and keep this interactive and engaging for students as well so that it's not too one-directional. Easier said than done depending on if it's online or offline, but we always try and develop engagement methods in what we do because that then speaks to our commitment to involving students as 'partners in learning'. Seminars, which we also term workshops or various types of terminology, they are also a venue where you build on your existing understanding and experience from the lecture - which may just signpost ideas and theories and concepts and case studies - and then you start talking it over. By the time you have your workshop or seminar in the week, you will have read some key readings but you'll also be discussing with fellow students. They're very student-centered or learner-centered, so when we approach a workshop or seminar we're very keen to have students be the star of the show if you know what I mean. It's not another opportunity for say myself to pontificate, but actually for you to start grappling with these issues in a way that's meaningful to you as an individual learner.

And then field trips, again, this is just to show the variety of what we offer in GSD. I know that there is a field trip coming up that Jess was running which I hope was very fine, apparently a bit muddy but you know we can't control the weather. It was very literally a 'field' trip - it was a trip to a field to do some scientific sampling of soil - that's as much as I know about it because I'm not a scientist. In years past we've also had further afield type activities. Just to show that we do have opportunities not just in the region - of course, because of COVID things have been a bit uncertain - but we're hoping to continue redeveloping and we're reasserting the value and the importance of our students actually getting out there and experiencing what development is and what it can be, right. We will all continue learning in this experience and I consider myself as continuously learning myself, even while I'm teaching. I've found personally, and I think many colleagues would agree, that our teaching experience is very well regarded and engaging for learners, which is something that we really value as an integral part of GSD.

So in terms of assessments, just to cover off this last point, we have quite a range of assessments. These are carefully considered to try and balance to some extent what students are familiar with in terms of approaching what an assessment is. So we do have some exams, we have essays, but we also have more creative and different forms of assessment that prompt learners to think actively on how they are encountering certain topics. On my first year module this term I'm running a quiz which is a weekly, very short multiple-choice quiz (that's not very interesting, but that's one). Then we also have more creative opportunities as well, so in my next term in my second-year module, I will be inviting creative submissions. In the past, these have included a theater production, a collage, a mock newspaper, a short story, science fiction, all to do with how a specific development topic - which is climate change - is being addressed. Okay, so there really is a wide scope of assessment style which I hope will speak to the varied potential interests that you may have as someone getting into development in its complex and interesting ways it is today.

So oh there we go. Now, as I foreshadowed a bit earlier and you may have seen this already, so the way that GSD or Global Sustainable Development as a BASc (Bachelor of Arts and Science) is set up is that you can choose to apply (dependent of course on entry requirements and so on) either for the single honours degree or a joint honours degree, of which there are quite a few so I won't go into all of them in detail. There are for instance Economics, or Politics (which is called PAIS in Warwick), or Sociology, but then also Theater Studies, History, Education... I promised wouldn't go into them and then I did, sorry! Education, Life Sciences (Jess is here so I wanted to mention that one too). There's a real diversity in how you can approach global sustainable development because that reflects how we know we're all different. Our staff can be quite different in their research focus and our students will be too and we embrace that. We try to embrace that in how we have structured the degree. The way you can pursue this is three years at Warwick, the let's say 'standard option'. There's also the option to take part of your second year abroad at the partner university (Monash) so that you can extend your learning and your experiences as part of the same degree. Or, there is also a longer placement which is a year-long one which we will cover a bit more later. There is a lot of ability for you to start curating how you want to approach this and this also is the case in our modules.

I kind of preempted this list (on the slide) so I didn't really need to go through them but there you go, that's the full list. Just another point on the joint honours: if you do study a joint honors degree, your teaching will be equally split between us (so the GSD Department) and the partner department that we work closely with - whether it's Warwick Business School, Economics, Education Studies etc. There is really an opportunity here if you are interested in a joint honours degree, for you to have a home base in our department but also make the most of your interests in one of these partner departments because they're all very closely interlinked with development. That's the thinking behind this - as we aim for 2030 and beyond and greater global development, we know that we need expertise, research, training, and learning in all of these different joint honours focuses and that's why we offer this as an option.

Having overviewed the degree a little bit in general terms, I just wanted to specify a bit more about how our modules operate. In your first year, you will have core modules which all GSD students have, whether it's single or joint honours. These are at the top of the slide (on the screen), so they'll be Economic, Environmental, and Social Principles. You'll see that there's a pattern here from what I suggested earlier about this transdisciplinary and open focus on three key focus areas within development. I just want to add that there is a distinction here between the Economic, Environmental, and Social, but we all know and reflect in our teaching that they are interlinked and that we have to achieve all of them to achieve development. That's the challenge we have! This is then also extended upon by the 'GSD Project' which is a group research project for small groups of students, let's say four to six, to together and collaboratively produce research in your very first year. This is quite exciting and quite an important thing, a skill to start learning from the beginning of your degree. As you get a bit later into your degree (I'll get to that in a bit) you already have some research background and training and you're able to assert yourself even as a first year as a researcher, okay. It's a group project so because of that it's quite inclusive and does speak to different people's skills. You wouldn't necessarily find it particularly intimidating, but actually just a really good opportunity to start coming to terms and to grips with how research proceeds across GSD.

Then specifically for single or joint honours, so for single honours students you'd have these core modules and then you would have freedom (I suppose), openness to choose other modules from several parts of the University and undertake modules that are relevant to GSD (that's the core criteria). As I said earlier with the joint honours mini blurb, we acknowledge and invite interest in other disciplines because we are all transdisciplinary ourselves. In this sense, you have a fair bit of freedom in that your optional modules can be any module with a GSD focus. We also offer some first-year optional modules ourselves if you want to stay in-house. We also have many positive experiences of our students taking Sociology or Politics or Business or Education or many other types of modules in the first year and doing really well in them, and then bringing that learning back into GSD for future years, right, so you can see what we do. The two examples of our first-year optional modules that we offer are 'Biodiversity and Ecology' and 'Living With Water'. We're very lucky to have Jess with us here today who will shortly be speaking about the 'Biodiversity' module.

In terms of the joint honours generally you have a certain amount of, well, you have to look into it more specifically as to depending on which joint honours it is... But generally your first year is fairly decided in the sense that you'll have to take a core module from each department in an equivalent amount. So you'll have to take these four core modules in GSD and you'll then have to take the other modules in the other department. There is also some capacity to start building up more optional modules as you go on in the degree and we'll get to that in a bit as well. I will now gracefully hand over to Jess who has joined us, take it away Jess. Thank you so much.

Dr Jess Savage, Senior Teaching Fellow >> Thanks Romain. Hi everyone, I'm Jess, I'm a Senior Teaching Fellow in GSD and I'm also the Deputy Head of School, but I'm here to talk to you today about one of my quirkier modules that's an optional module for first-year single honours students in GSD. It's called 'Biodiversity and Ecology' but in reality it's more just about our living planet. In this module I really try and take you outside of the classroom - I'm not a big fan of classrooms, I don't like walls. Each week we do a topic within the realms of biodiversity and ecology and our natural environment, environmental sciences, in an interactive 'lecture' is probably the best word, but it's not a great word for it, before heading outside. All of the seminars that you would normally take in a more traditional module inside a classroom, we do outside. You'll be doing different activities, the pictures on the screen show some of the students from last year, a couple of years ago, taking river bed kick samples to look at biodiversity in streams and how that changes between the more built-up areas of campus and the more rural areas of campus - there is a noticeable difference. We have caught fish before which gave everybody a little bit of a shock! This ties in really, really nicely to a lot of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) around living with water (as the picture suggests) but also life on land and comes down to the basic principles that underpin everything that makes our living world operate. It's quite fun, it's quite hands-on, it's interactive. The assessment, as Romain said, tends to be innovative. The idea is that you would work together in a group to conduct a small research project, get some hands-on research experience, and to be honest have some fun while getting outside. It has been affectionately nicknamed 'the muddy module' and so you might want to take that into consideration when packing to come and join us! It also operates as an intensive three week module in term three, so we've picked the best time for the weather. It means that you can really get stuck into the module with fewer distractions coming from other places and it also happens to be when biodiversity peaks. The summer is a good time to do this module (we used to do it in November and that wasn't great). If you have any questions about it, please feel free to ask in the Q&A.

Romain Chenet, Director of Student Experience >> Thank you Jess, that was very succinct, I appreciate it. I briefly tagged along to one of Jess's classes, if you can call them classes because it was by a river and people are wearing weird kind of body suit things, wetsuits... no they weren't wetsuits. Jess, what are they called, those dungarees?

Dr Jess Savage, Senior Teaching Fellow >> Chest waders, so I guess just like waterproof dungarees with wellington boots built into them.

Romain Chenet, Director of Student Experience >> So like fisherman's gear, basically?

Dr Jess Savage, Senior Teaching Fellow >> Yeah, I tried to get pink ones but they only did them in children's sizes.

Ah shame. Well you never know, maybe next year the market will find a way. Okay thank you so much, Jess. So moving on to the next slide. Also considering that the fun doesn't stop I guess in first year, of course. What you'll find is that as you progress on the degree, you will have more and more opportunities to get stuck in. These are some of our optional core modules in the second year (on the slide) of which you need to take two (you could take three if you wanted). Then there are also options for you to take further modules with a GSD focus, again from within the department or across the University, as long as it's relevant to GSD then that's fine. Some examples of this are 'Challenges of Climate Change' or 'Surviving the Apocalypse' (which is mine so we're promoting it today) where I take a quite sometimes esoteric but very problem-based approach to grappling with big, worrying problems today such as climate change, but many other related or interrelated concerns. There's a fair amount of flexibility and freedom here in how you approach the modules, which is also reflected in our assessments.

Across these, there will be opportunities for you to use an assessment to develop a policy brief, or to prepare a conference presentation, or provide an action plan for an NGO with policy recommendations. I think that's a 'Jess special', yeah it is, I thought so. Having worked in NGOs myself before, I know that these types of skills are really important, we'll talk about employability later, but we use assessments as a way to engage students in their future careers and their future aims in their discipline. When we talk about sustainable development, we know that it's about working in the future and graduating and continuing your life journey, if you're interested in doing so, within this what we determine 'the sector' but is very varied and diverse and our assessments reflect that too.

The joint honours it's similar but again it's split between the two departments. You would need to take your core and/or optional modules outside of GSD in the partner department, because that reflects your interest in that subject, in that specialism as it were. What I will say here on the joint honours is that don't think that it's a massive binary that you go and study GSD and then you go and study this other topic. The aim and the expectation is that your studies will be closely interrelated no matter which joint honours you do. So a student on say the GSD and History joint honours may have quite a historical focus in their GSD work and may have quite a sustainable development focus in their history work. This is just one example and as I said we invite and encourage that and please do see the website if you want a bit more detail on how the joint honours are set up.

So now we get to Final Year. This is the culmination of your time with us in GSD and of course, as with many degrees, you will do a dissertation. But what I will say about the dissertation is that there's a lot of flexibility and capacity for it to reflect your own interests. Of course, because it's a student-led research project, we want students to use this opportunity to constructively learn more and research more on a specific topic that you have found interesting in the previous years and want to build on and contribute new knowledge, new information on. Again, the split between single and joint honours: you do the dissertation and then you'll also have optional modules from within and beyond GSD, in the same way as previous years, as long as they're relevant. These are some example modules (on the slide) that you can see more of on our website. So 'The Energy Trilemma' takes the problem-based approach to energy. 'Debt' is a more economics or sustainable development economics type module, also very closely related to politics, political economy, right - you can see again, a lot of variety. 'Debt, Money, and Sustainable Development' it's called. And then Stephanie's module 'Human Rights and Social Justice in Latin America and the Caribbean' which is very research-led because that's Stephanie's research specialism, but is also using this problem-based approach to start helping students think more broadly and more widely about the concept of human rights and social justice. It may start with a case study but the aim is that you then keep building on that. It's these kinds of things that we would offer students in the final year.

Again joint honours has the same kind of setup, within GSD and within the partner department. One simple point to add here before I invite our ambassadors to say a bit more about the dissertation, is that if you are doing a joint honours in GSD the dissertation is in GSD, just to say. So we would expect it to be led by GSD because we are the home department but again, of course, you're very welcome and again invited to bring in your learning from other parts of your studies, because that reflects what we try and do as well. I just wanted to mention if Lucía or Szebasztián, if you wanted to add anything about the dissertation it would be a good time to do so. Just go for it.

Lucía, Sociology and GSD student >> So I'm Lucía, I'm joint honours Sociology and GSD, and I'm doing my dissertation because I'm taking in Sociology a module on 'State Crime and Human Rights' and how it's not really being reported the way it should. I'm Spanish, I am joining this with sustainable development to study how not having reported or not having denounced the violation of human rights during the Franco dictatorship in Spain is now preventing sustainable development. I'm not using primary research because I did that last year and this is a very sensitive topic so I don't feel like... also I'm very biased in the topic because I'm Spanish, I know people who have been victims from this dictatorship, so I'm doing, I'm using secondary research, reading a lot and I'm going to try to touch on the events that are happening recently like demonstrations, political... like the rise of political parties from the extreme right both in Spain and the rest of Europe and how other countries have overcome dictatorships like Chile and the new constitution that's been developed to try to think of how if we denounce, if we report the violation of human rights and state crime in Spain during the dictatorship, sustainable development would be more viable and more easily achieved in Spain. So I chose a more social path, but I'm bringing economics, politics, and even a little bit of climate change and how different political parties are dealing with it.

Szebasztián, Economic Studies and GSD student >> Oh wow, that's just impressive Lucía, really. Something that I wanted to add that we are both doing is classic dissertation projects like research, but like in GSD you can also do something creative. If you think that your research project can be more expressed in a movie or any creative project you're welcome to do that. I'm doing a classic dissertation project from like more a social and economic perspective on poverty traps. You might have heard about poverty traps, how in some countries some individuals are stuck in poverty because of their income and there are status consumption-related poverty traps. My more quantitative research will look at Eastern European countries and research, if there are any status consumption-related poverty traps in these Eastern European countries.

Romain Chenet, Director of Student Experience >> Thank you so much both. Both sound really interesting unfortunately I'm not supervising either Lucía or Szeb this year because it sounds really fascinating, so I wish you well as an aside. Hopefully that gave you an idea of the diversity of what you could pursue. In terms of the dissertation, just to pick up a bit on what Szebasztián said, there is this opportunity to also be creative here. We do not just want students to all write the same kind of thing in the same way because we are also striving for something a bit different. Something that's a bit more innovative and that actually develops and demonstrates and has impact. In the past there was a really phenomenal dissertation which was an art exhibition and it was within the local area and which was very successful and it's continued showing success, but that's just one example. Every year there are opportunities for students to engage in and develop a creative response to these many global challenges that we face. Again, there is a diversity, that flexibility there so you could have a more classic (I like that term, Szebasztián) classic approach or more written, secondary based approach. We also encourage primary data collection, of course, subject to ethical approval, but it's usually okay, such as interviews or surveys or many different ways of actually coming to grips with development issues, right. Because our research does that too, we love seeing students do so.

So just to move on...

One thing that I think we do very well and that we really focus a lot on in GSD is student support. I myself am a Director of Student Experience for first-year students. If you join us, you'll get to know me, hello, if you start here. Within that broad remit, the real focus is on students doing the best they can on the course and flagging any things that you are maybe unsure about and could use some support on. You will have your very own personal tutor who is there for you, essentially, in terms of academic support but also pastoral or what we call life-ish type support - everything to do with how you could do better, or need more support in your university journey. This will be for throughout your degree of course. The GSD approach is I think quite well regarded within Warwick because we are very active and focused on student engagement and experience, whichever domain that may be. There will be multiple opportunities for you to get involved and speak to us. I'd like to think we're all quite approachable and you are again invited to come and see us. For instance, I have an hour every day where that's held aside just for students to seek support as needed from myself and my colleague Gioia (who does later years and has the same as well). We also have a virtual common room - there's lots of different touchpoints which we set up for students to kind of come to us and to understand that we are happy to be approached and that we are happy to speak with and resolve any students' concerns and support you in your GSD journey.

There's also the Student-Staff Liaison Committee (SSLC) and we're very lucky to have Lucia here today, you'll find out soon so this will be covered a bit later. In short, it's an opportunity for students to together discuss and provide recommendations and interlinks with staff. We take the SSLC seriously and we work with students directly to continuously improve and develop our degrees, with their really valued input and support here.

Study skills support workshops is another essential part of, I'm sure you'd agree, coming to university and transitioning from secondary school or high school to now being at university, big and scary. What we do is that we implement a range of study skills support workshops. I myself run the first-year ones, so that's essentially a weekly lecture and activity based on an important topic to do with study skills. It could be writing an essay, taking notes, managing your time.

We also do have a mentoring scheme that I wanted to bring up because I'm just pairing up students this week, so first-year students who are new to GSD and who want to work with (oh the slides disappeared, what's going on sorry the slides disappeared someone...sorry I can't see the slides anymore, is that just me? There we go, beautiful, it's back. Something weird happened but with the magic of technology we're all back together, hopefully). Study skills is very focused on students doing well and actually being given the tools they need to to do well, not just assuming it and hoping for the best (a bit what it was like when I was at university many many moons ago, just struggled your way through and hoped for the best, we don't like that approach here). We do a lot to bring students on board and help students learn about the potentially best way of approaching studies in very practical ways, right, so how to take notes etc. Then that continues in later years as well into your second and third year because we appreciate that although you may have a foundation of skills from the beginning, as your degree progresses so will your abilities and we speak to that and we respond to that.

I just wanted to briefly, before handing over to Bodrun who I can see now on the screen, hello Bodrun, just speak about our professional development certificates. We also believe that employability and learning goes beyond just certain topics or what you might consider the boundaries of your degree, but actually will involve much more as you then graduate and enter the workplace or whichever career you focus on. We recognise this and respond to it from from the beginning. The 'Digital Literacy' certificate which I teach on responds to how we now live in a very digitally interconnected world where there are many technological things going on and we need to at least learn enough and know enough to start working through that and doing well in that if we're interested in particular. We also have other certificates, so the 'Sustainability Consultancy' and 'Coaching Practice', all of these are designed for GSD students. They are in-house, so we offer them and we have customised them to what we've understood from students and with students are really valuable and helpful types of professional development that speaks to their interests and their future career plans, of course. This is again also recorded on your Higher Education Achievement Report, so you will get a certificate (you could frame it on your wall if you want) and it will be something that is very useful for your CVs and job applications because it shows that you have taken this added step to develop yourself professionally, which I know that many students are and very rightly so focused on in challenging global environments with. We do everything we can to support students with that.

My colleague Bodrun is here - very happy to have you. I just wanted to know if you wanted to maybe say a word or two on the professional communication certificate and then use that as an intro to your next slides, is that okay Bodrun?

Bodrun Nahar, Employability and Placement Manager >> Sure, I'll definitely talk about the Certificate of Professional Communication. Hi everyone, I'm Bodrun Nahar as Romain mentioned. I'm the Employability and Placement Manager for the GSD degree programme and really in a nutshell my role here is to support you, along with all your academics, in helping you to develop your employability skills so that it makes it a little bit more easier for you after you graduate when it comes to understanding yourself, what you want to do, and more importantly what's out there as well for you. I work with you in a number of different ways, very much dependent on the support that you require. That can be anything from one-to-one advice and guidance on any matters really. It could be on work placements, it could be on your future career. I also get involved in delivering specific skill sessions that will be relevant to you throughout your study programme in relation to your future career. One of the key parts of my role is to build work relationships with external stakeholders such as employers, to really generate work placements for you. This is something that we very much encourage our students very early on to take part in. The reason for that is because we all know it's a very competitive job market out there, and after we finish our studies at some point we will have to go into the world of work. We want to make sure that you are aware of this very, very early on and actually our whole degree programme, GSD, I would say to a certain level comes all under the umbrella of employability in preparing you for the world of work. Whether it's the content, whether it's our teaching style, whether it's our assessment. So really, it actually prepares you for the world of work in developing your skills, but we want you to apply that in a professional setting. It's a completely different world out there. This is why we give you two options to undertake work placements which will be recognised on your Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR), so it will be on your transcript.

One of them is part of the Certificate of Professional Communication. Now this certificate is again optional, designed for year one and two students, to really give you exposure and understanding of the world of work and the challenges that we face and how to navigate that. You then apply this knowledge into a working environment for about a month, which then gives you a bit of understanding, so it's been a bit like a taster if you like. This actually gets acknowledged and recognised on your what we call the HEAR.

The other option that we give you is the year-long placement, which is commonly referred to as a 'sandwich placement' or 'industrial placement', but here at Warwick we like to be slightly different - we call it the 'intercalated work placement'. Really, the year-long placement takes place in your third year. So in your first and second year you're studying. In your third year you go out to work for an organisation for a minimum of seven months up to 12 months. And then in your fourth year you come back to complete your final year.

Now both of these options are available to you, so you don't have to choose one or the other, but the keyword here is 'optional' and so we give you the choice. We believe it's our responsibility to give you that choice and support you through that process. We very much encourage you to engage in that very early on, because it really, really does support you in a number of different ways. It's not only just to help you to find a career that suits you, but really for your own personal development. I always say this is a phase in your life where there's rapid growth in terms of learning about yourself and the world of work, going out there and interacting with different environments, different sectors, different people. It will really allow you to put yourself out there and understand your strengths and limitations, which really will serve you in understanding what you want to do after you graduate. So please when you do join us, start considering this and just bear in mind that you are not on your own. With anything with the GSD degree programme, there's always support for you. Whether it's your academics, personal tutor, whether it's in my capacity, we're all here to support you through this process and help you navigate that.

I just really want to give you (sorry I'm trying to move to the next slide, thank you) so I just want to give you a bit of an overview of the types of placements that our students actually, your fellow peers have gone into. These are real examples and it's just a sample just to let you know (this is not it there's more). We have had GSD students go into Research Assistant roles, Intelligence roles, an Intelligence Analyst, Marketing, Finance... it is really, really broad and I think it's evidence of what we've been saying throughout this session. The GSD degree programme really does train you and develop you in a way that it actually maximizes your opportunities in terms of the careers that you can go into. We're trying to showcase to you that our students at Year Two go out there and do many different roles and I think also it's an indication of from an employee employer's perspective. Employers are aware of what you study, how we teach you, what you get out of this, and because of that they're interested in our students, from lots of different sectors and in lots of different roles. And actually this is continued on to our graduate careers as well.

So I'm just going to try and move to the next slide, let's see if this works (oh thank you, someone's done that for me, thank you very much). So we've just to give you an example, so it's sort of like to give you a continuation so you can do work placements in a number of different areas/sectors, but this is the same when you graduate and go into work as well. You can see the variety (on the slide). We've got students working in the recruitment industry, in public policy, accounting, finance... I mean the list goes on. Again, this is just a sample of where our students have gone but an indication to you that by studying the GSD degree programme, you really, really can go into whatever you're interested in. Obviously if you wanted to be a doctor I'd say maybe it's not the right degree, but you know most of it is there.

Also on the other side (of the screen) you can see the further studies. Students go into a number of different areas that they're interested in. This is also an option to you and something that you may find out as you're studying your GSD degree programme. Whichever way you look at it is to see that there's so many options out there for you. Whether it's further studies or in terms of your career. But I would say very early on and we encourage this, is for you to start engaging in work placements as soon as possible to really explore what's out there. I always say treating like a playing field - you're in that safety of the education world and you've got us to support you through that process. So embrace it and really engage in as many work placements as possible and we'll be here to support you through that (I'm just trying to check if there's another slide, no). No, I think that's about it really. I would say when you do come, keep an open mind in terms of your careers. You may not be 100% sure what you want to do, but this is absolutely fine because I'm sure we were all in this position. Through doing work placements and exploring what's out there, you will learn more about yourself and know exactly what you want to do after you graduate. I think that's about it from me now, so I'll pass it over to Romain.

Romain Chenet, Director of Student Experience >> Thank you so much Bodrun. Yes, so as you can see we're on it, we definitely take employability very seriously. Bodrun, but as well as everyone else in the department, we do consider this in our own teaching as well. All of our modules will weave in employability skills at the same time. This is all worth bearing in mind. We do take this seriously because we know what it's like too.

I just wanted to follow up a bit because this is linked to what Bodrun was just noting that we do have a range of international opportunities in GSD (let's go close the chat because I put something in the chat and I'm seeing every pop-up and it's distracting, okay there we go, it's alway the way isn't it). We do offer study abroad and we can do it in an integrated way which means that (this is very unique to GSD as well in Warwick) certain terms of your second year you can go over for a short term study abroad. Our university partners are Monash University which is in Australia or Malaysia. It's integrated into a degree, so it's just essentially studying abroad but you're still doing the same degree and the modules that you would do are focused on GSD as well.

Then in addition to that we also have the 'intercalated' options, which is again a bit more jargon. What that means is that it adds a year to your to your degree so it would then become a fourth year course which is similar to the work placements that Bodrun just mentioned. You can do a year-long work placement too, so it's the same kind of thing. Not quite, but same kind of thing for study abroad where you could study abroad in your third year whilst remaining Warwick student it doesn't count towards your over your overall degree, but it is recorded on your HEAR, your Higher Education Achievement Report. So because of this, it does give you an opportunity to not quite take a year out but to study abroad for a year and then return to GSD to complete your degree. There's quite a range of of these and we're continuously working on them and looking for new partnerships etc. If you join us next year, by the time you are in your second or third year, there will be more exciting initiatives. Just to say that we do consider ourselves very international because we are so globally diverse and our student base is incredibly diverse, the most diverse in the entire faculty that we sit within in terms of international students. This has been very kind of popular as well, the idea of studying abroad even for a term, two terms, but also the intercalated option. You definitely do have this potential if you wanted to join GSD.

This links in with the Warwick International Intensive Study Programme. This is something we do that's not quite like a summer school, but it's if you think about it in that way. It focuses on transcending disciplinary boundaries and geographical borders. These are modules that are specifically put together within Warwick, but to actually approach global issues which will be relevant to our topic but is a global [indescript]. We call it the Warwick International Intensive Study Programme and this involves modules from our own School of Cross-faculty Studies, which is 'A Sustainable Serenissima' which takes a problem-based approach to water in Venice, specifically in Italy. These modules are quite intensive, so they're two - three weeks, and they do have a very specific project-based approach and assessment. So these are just some examples, you're invited to look into this more on the website in your own time, but there's a lot going on in GSD is what we're conveying throughout this overview.

What this ties into and what we focus a lot on is student community. I'm going to hand it back over to our lovely ambassadors, Lucía and Szebasztián. I'll just take it for granted you're lovely, I've not met Szebasztián in person, just full disclaimer, but I can attest to that Lucía is lovely, so there you go. It's justified, please take over and go through them in the way you want, thanks.

Lucía, Sociology and GSD student >> Yes, so Romain talked a little bit about the Student-Staff Liaison Committee (SSLC) earlier. This is the Student-Staff Liaison Committee and basically what we do is we meet up every three weeks or so and talk about any feedback that we've had from other students or even from our own experience and talk with a member of staff. If it's something that the department can do something about, so if it's something about some modules, or about assessments, structure that is something that the department can change or can improve. We work on proposals to pass it on to the department so that student experience is improved and everyone's experience really also staff members.

I was also part of Warwick Cup - you see the image (on screen) with Hollie up there and Ellie. This was an initiative, I think it started in my first year, where it's a reusable cup sharing system. Basically we had these cups in Curiositea which is one of the Students' Union cafes and it's going to be expanded throughout the University over time. Instead of bringing your own reusable cup, if you forgot it or something like that, or if you don't have one, instead of giving you a paper cup we would give you this. Then after you finish your drink, whatever it was, you would put it in some bins that we have. We would wash them and they would go back to the cafe. It was a way of reducing paper cups and any other kind of waste generated by this, so like the lids. It worked really well until COVID came around and then it stopped working for a year/two years. We're now setting hands on it again, trying to make it work again. We have several other societies, initiatives. Szeb, do you want to take care of those?

Szebasztián, Economic Studies and GSD student >> Yeah sure, thanks Lucía. Really I just want to add that if you have any other ideas regarding the sustainability of campus or our local community, Warwick is really here to support your ideas. I think even Warwick Cup won some kind of funding from the University to make this project happen. They're really here to help you if you have a good idea. Yes, I can talk about the GSD Society. Obviously, this course has its own academic society as well. If you study GSD you can go to socials, meet like-minded people, and then really there can be... I always go to socials because you can always be very interesting new people who just want to save the world so it's an impressive community. They're also here to support you.The department has this mentoring scheme that's very helpful but like if you just want to study together with someone else, they have study sessions. Maybe like a second year or third year can help with the coursework of the first year. Now they are recruiting campaign officers as well so the GSD Society really wants to do make some impact on campus life or in general. They are recruiting campaign officers to run campaigns.

There is GLOBUS that you might be able to see on on the slide. That's a journal - mostly GSD students write in this journal, but everyone's welcome to join. Its main topic is sustainability, this is a very broad topic, you can write any articles on sustainability. It's great because it's a great platform to share your ideas or maybe like share your academic research in a more in a simpler, maybe like more... you can reach a greater audience. Obviously you can join as Editor or Editor-in-Chief and it's not only fun to to meet people in GLOBUS, but also like if you join GLOBUS and write some articles and you're a correspondent, that shows great employability skills that you can just add to your your CV later on. So yeah if you want to try something you can really do anything on campus.

Lucía, Sociology and GSD student >> I think, I just really wanted to quickly add that all these initiatives are part either from the department or the Students' Union (SU) but are usually all started by GSD students. It's not only a way of increasing your employability skills, getting to know the staff better, but it's also to get to know those people you meet in seminars. I've met people in the GSD Society who I've only heard talk in a debate and we were debating against each other. We really wanted to like get to know each other better but then we didn't because we had to go to another seminar or lecture. It's a really great way of getting to know the GSD community much better since in the end it's like once you leave a university, this is the network you are going to work with in the future. So yeah I found especially with the SSLC, with the Society, I found it really useful to network much more with my colleagues in class.

Romain Chenet, Director of Student Experience >> Yeah absolutely, and I think what both Lucía and Szebasztián are highlighting here is that there are many venues for students to be involved and to get to know each other and to make friends and to pursue your interests within and beyond GSD. And as also mentioned there is a mentoring scheme, right (which I brought up a bit earlier, but I'm in charge of it so i like I'm bragging about it) but it's very successful and it's very popular. So every year we'll have first-year students (so new students, yourselves potentially in a year) who are paired up with second or third year students who have already gone through the first year. It's another opportunity for you to learn more about the department and how to approach student life, in all the non-academic stuff that we don't necessarily tell you but that's important and useful to know. So there are many social opportunities and then of course this is only just the kind of GSD-focused ones (on the slide), there are many further societies and sports in the University. Many of our students are very active in many different societies, but often will have... because GSD has such engaged and committed students saving the world (as Szeb said) or at least figuring out more about how this weird world works, so we can try and save it (I like that, that's my approach, not too ambitious maybe) many of our students will continue pursuing GSD-related interests in other social activities. But as Szeb said, the socials usually are a great place to meet people and make friends and find common interests. There's a lot of that opportunity within GSD.

We're just coming towards the end of this overview. These are the links if you're interested in applying for a degree. This is on the main University website, but if you're interested in learning more particularly with the entry requirements you may need to apply, please do so as soon as possible. It's on this website here (on the slide) and we do have a wide range of flexibility in welcoming applications with different qualifications from different countries. Because we are so globally diverse every year we have many students who may come to us from let's say over 20 countries easily, I'd say (probably more than that, but that's just off the top of my head, maybe 30, who knows). Because of that we do welcome applications from many different countries as well. So please do just look it up on the website under warwick.ac.uk/gsdentry for specific to GSD, or in terms of international qualifications (I did the IB myself so that's a popular one, many years ago) please have a look at the main Warwick website: warwick.ac.uk/ugoffers.

I would just like to again thank everyone for your time in taking part in this session and in this full open day. There is time set aside now if you have any questions either you know ask, just asking in the chat, or you're welcome to also follow up separately. If you did want to ask anything just now please do put questions in the chat as we're going to be here for a little while. If not then we look forward to seeing you at the later taster session as well which is at 2:30 pm which will be run by myself and my colleague Jonathan looking at sustainable transports and the interesting example or taster of what GSD might be like when you when you join us. So thank you again everyone and hopefully see you at the next session. I'd like to thank everyone else for taking part today, my ambassador friends Lucía and Szebasztián, Bodrun, Jess and of course Stephanie.