Student Opportunity - Skills & Student Development

From the time you arrive at Warwick, Student Opportunity can help you think about yourself and your future. We enable you to develop a global perspective, become culturally aware, and have confidence in achieving your vision of career success. We do this by supporting you to engage with a rich and varied range of experiences and opportunities to help you to achieve your full potential.

Higher education is about developing your academic capability and your personality, experience and skills - and though the future may seem far off, employers like to hear what students have done with their time at university and place great emphasis on the development of skills. Economics students are offered plenty of opportunities to develop skills through workshops and initiatives offered through Student Opportunity. Many of these activities can count towards your Personal Development Module which you complete during your first year of study.

The Student Opportunity Careers Team can enable you to devise and implement plans which will help you get where you want to be in terms of work and careers once your studies here are over. Support is available to you regardless of which year you are in (and indeed after you graduate), whether your ideas are common or unusual and wherever you are in your career thinking, from being extremely focused to having no ideas at all. Support includes:

• Stephanie Redding is the Economics Senior Careers Consultant. You can make a 30-minute appointment to talk through your ideas, or attend one of the workshops organised specifically for Economics students.
• The Student Opportunity – Careers website contains up-to-date careers information and resources designed specifically for Warwick students, and our popular Careers blog is at careersblog.warwick.ac.uk
• A huge range of opportunities and events to meet organisations and employees, from large careers fairs to alumni meetings to employer-led skills events.
• Support with finding internships and other work experience and access to work experience bursaries.
• Skills development opportunities including the Undergraduate Research Support Scheme (URSS) and the Warwick Award.
• Support with the practical process of making applications, including CV reviews, interview support and practice psychometric tests

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 have confidence in achieving your vision of career success.

The Department Academic Careers Coordinator Dr Atisha Ghosh leads a team within the Department looking at careers, employability skills and a range of unique opportunities for our students to support them with acquiring skills relevant for economists and with their career planning. Her role involves:

• Providing students with updated information about exciting opportunities in different sectors for students to explore during and after their degree in economics.
• To support students in developing their employability skills. This involves providing a clear link between the different modules offered by the Department and the relevant employability skills students can acquire through taking these modules.
• To work with Student Opportunity to help support students in transitioning into the labour market or further educational opportunities.
• To work with the Director of Student Engagement and Experience, module leader of the Personal Development Module and Department's Marketing and Communications Manager to ensure the scheme delivers relevant employability skills.
• To work with student societies to foster a joined-up approach to employability support.
• To analyse Graduate Destinations data in order to provide current students with information and support regarding their career options.

Available Resources

On the Department's Careers & SkillsLink opens in a new window online portal you will be able to find a range of useful resources tailored to the needs of Economics students. The website has a host of resources for you to engage in:

• It provides you with information on a range of exciting job roles in various sectors, which are not only in banking and finance.
• There is a section which maps skills that you will acquire in different modules to employability skills. This will enable you to consolidate and communicate your profile to prospective employers.
• You will be able to access important tips from past students who have secured roles after graduation and via Spring and insight weeks and also those who have opted to go on to further studies. This is in addition to information about a host of services provided by the various student societies in supporting your career goals.
• Information and recordings of career webinars where we have hosted alumni from a broad range of careers.

• Access the University's central careers resources and events via Student Opportunity, which supports students with developing the skills that key graduate recruiters look for and provides advice and guidance on career options.
• Browse the Skills Zone because whilst you are at Warwick where you have the opportunity to develop your personal and professional skills, join societies, become a volunteer and find part-time work.
  

• Find out about the Warwick EnterpriseLink opens in a new window team, who can help you develop entrepreneurial skills and try out new business ideas and social enterprise.

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

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

Warwick Award

The University’s Warwick Award is designed to complement and build on the key skills gained during your academic studies. Workshop topics include working in a team, delivering effective presentations, and organising yourself and your time.

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 the Centre for Applied Linguistics (CAL). 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: www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/study/learn-english/in-sessional