6: Careers & Personal Development

Student Opportunity - Skills & Student Development

Student Opportunity is there to help you develop a global perspective, become culturally aware and achieve success in your career. They and their Careers Team offer many workshops and initiatives designed to help you achieve your goals after you graduate. Support is available to you even after you graduate and no matter what stage you are in within your career plans.

Here are some examples of the most popular programmes they offer:

WorkReady - a work experience toolkit to guide you on your work experience journey
TeamWork - an online international experience programme, taking place part-time, for 4 weeks.
Thrive™ - an award winning (Gold in QS Reimagine Education Awards in the 'Nurturing Wellbeing and Purpose' category 2024), interactive in-person programme delivered by an experienced team here at Warwick, where you can hear from inspirational speakers.

In addition, there are careers workshops, support to help you find internships and other work experience, as well as many opportunities and events to meet organisations and employees, from large careers fairs to alumni meetings, to employer-led skills events. There is also support with making applications, including CV review, interview support and a chance to practice psychometric tests.

You can find all the information on the Student Opportunity: Careers website, which also contains up-to-date careers information and resources designed specifically for Warwick students, and the popular Careers blog at careersblog.warwick.ac.uk.

You can also attend a careers drop-in at the Student Opportunity Hub at Senate House, or book a career guidance appointment with a Careers Consultant to discuss your career plans.

Details and booking for events and appointments run by Student Opportunity are at myAdvantage.

Careers and Skills support within the Department of Economics

Our aim is to support your career planning by offering you a range of opportunities to develop self-awareness, acquire new skills and help you achieve your vision of career success. The Department has an Academic Careers Coordinator, Dr Farzad JavidanradLink opens in a new window who leads a team of people looking at careers, employability skills and a range of unique opportunities to help you acquire skills relevant for economists and with your career planning. You can find out more about the role of the Department’s Academic Careers Coordinator on the Department’s careers website.

On the Department's Link opens in a new window Careers & SkillsLink opens in a new window online portal, you can find many useful resources tailored to the needs of Economics students. This includes:

Information on a range of exciting job roles across many sectors;
Mapping of the skills in your modules to employability skills;
Tips from past students on graduate careers and further study;
Career webinars with alumni from a broad range of careers;
Access to the University’s central careers resources and events via Student OpportunityLink opens in a new window;
Information about the Warwick EnterpriseLink opens in a new window Link opens in a new windowteam and help with developing your entrepreneurial skills;

In term time you will receive an email with a Careers Bulletin, a bespoke communication listing the most important careers and job opportunities relevant to students from the Department of Economics, developed by the Careers Link opens in a new windowteam.

Key skills

We have summarised skills, experiences and knowledge we believe you will acquire from your Diploma course. Reflecting on what you have learned and planning further personal development will help you to:

Achieve your academic and career goals
Recognise what professional attributes you have developed
Be prepared for searching questions from employers on applications and at interview
Become more independent learners and critical thinkers
Be more self-directed, self-reliant and proactive.

Cognitive skills

Analytical thinking and communication: Your study of Economics requires you to develop a deep understanding of often complicated issues using a variety of analytical frameworks, tools and approaches and to communicate your understanding in a variety of ways, including through verbal, graphical, mathematical and statistical techniques. You have to demonstrate your ability to understand formal analysis and communicate your understanding through: engagement and contributions in module Support and Feedback classes and group project presentations, completion of exercise sheets, problem sets, and non-assessed essays, and through tests and formal examinations.
Analytical reasoning: Some key concepts in Economics have wider significance in aiding analytical reasoning: e.g., the ceteris paribus method, counter-factual analysis, the concepts of opportunity cost, trade-offs, and comparative advantage.
Critical thinking: Developing the habit of questioning received ideas, forming judgements and making evaluations, e.g. comparing Keynesian with neo-classical approaches to macro; evaluating the case for or the efficiency of government interventions.
Creative thinking: e.g., if there is no model to explain some observed behaviour, we need to develop an appropriate model. Economics provides tools with which to build models of behaviour.
Strategic thinking: e.g., through game theory with multi-agent decision making where payoffs depend on the endogenous actions of others.
Problem solving: Knowing how to approach various types of problem, determining whether a solution exists.
Abstraction: Judging how to balance simplification against ‘realism.’ Knowing how to isolate separate effects of different factors — as with marginal or ceteris paribus effects.
Policy evaluation: Being aware of the policy context and also of methodological issues involved in evaluation — such as with the identification of causal effects of policy interventions.
Analysis of institutions: Understanding the roles of institutions and through political economy analysis of the origins and behaviour of these institutions.
Analysis of incentives: Understanding economic motivations of individuals and the limits of economic explanations.
Concepts of simultaneity and endogeneity: Understanding complex inter-reactions between economic variables and behaviours.
Analysis of optimisation: Understanding choice and decision-making based on analysis of the interplay of preferences, objectives and constraints.
Understanding of uncertainty and incomplete information: Probability, expectation and risks asymmetric information.

Subject specific and professional skills

Research skills: Use of library and internet as information sources. Knowledge of how to locate relevant data, extract appropriate data and analyse and present material.
Numeracy and quantitative skills: Use of mathematics and diagrams; statistical analysis of data.
Data-based skills: Downloading, filtering, managing, coding and analysing data.
IT skills: Word processing, spreadsheets, specialised econometric and statistical packages, drawing and equation-writing skills and internet applications.

Subject knowledge and understanding

Economic Principles: Knowledge and understanding of core concepts and methods in micro and macro economics.
Applied Economics: Knowledge and understanding of standard economic models and quantitative techniques with application to problems arising in public policy and the private sector.
Economic information: Knowledge of economic trends and patterns; understanding of problems and solutions in economic measurement.
Research and debate: Familiarity with contemporary theoretical and empirical debates and research outcomes in some more specialised areas of economics. Understanding of how to approach an economic problem from the perspective of a researcher in economics.

A useful exercise you might want to conduct is that of identifying how your different module choices contribute to the acquisition of these different skills.

Key general skills

Written communication skills: Through submission of essays, problem sets, module Support and Feedback class work, tests, projects and examination scripts.
Oral communication skills: Through participation in module Support and Feedback classes and group work.
Team work skills: Through engagement in group project work and in module Support and Feedback classes.
IT skills: as above under Skill Set B(4).
Mathematical, Statistical, data-based research skills: As above under Skill Set B(1), B(2), and B(3).

Warwick Award

Warwick Award gives you the opportunity to develop vital skills that will improve your employability after graduation. The Award is based around 12 core employability skills: Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Self-Awareness, Communication, Teamwork, Information Literacy, Sustainability, Ethical Values, Digital Literacy, Intercultural Awareness, Organisational Awareness, and Professionalism.

The Award recognises the transferable employability skills you will develop through completing not only your academic modules, but also the extra-curricular training courses and co-curricular activities you get involved with during your time at Warwick. It also highlights training and development opportunities so you can craft a full range of skills. The Award can also be personalised to allow you to choose activities based on your own interests and focus on the skills that matter the most to you and your future.

Further details about the award are given at: Warwick Award

English language classes

Students from other countries may wish to take one of the free in-sessional English language classes organised by Warwick Foundation Studies. This will help your written work, reading, and understanding during lectures and seminars. It can also help improve your job prospects as employers will value language skills.

Further details are given at: Pre-Sessional and In-Sessional English at Warwick