StudentShapers Applications: working with Attributes and Aspirations
When you apply for a StudentShapers project you’ll have to demonstrate to the staff partners that you have the skills and knowledge to complete the project. Writing about what skills you have is a skill in itself and may take practice. See how Rachel (one of the Inclusive Personae) applies for a StudentShapers project here.
Once you’ve completed your StudentShapers projects you will have gained more transferable skills that you can use as evidence when you apply for future jobs or further study programmes. Your project can also help you to reality check that you enjoy using certain skills which will help you to better understand what sort of career you might like.
Key Skills: for staff-student partnership and beyond
All jobs, degree programmes and work experience opportunities such as StudentShapers require you to demonstrate key skills to prove to the shortlister that you are suited for the opportunity. The most common transferable skills are:
- Communication
- Teamworking
- Time-management
You can practice these skills by enrolling on the online Attributes and Aspirations (AA) course. Having completed an AA unit can provide evidence to add to your application as Rachel does.
Attributes and Aspirations is designed in modules that are tailored to the level at which you are studying, so be sure to enrol in the most suitable modules for you.
- If you are an undergraduate student you can access all of the AA units by enrolling on AA for Undergraduate.
- Postgraduate student can enrol on the separate units individually.
- COM – Communication
- EE – Efficiency and Effectiveness
- WWO – Working with Others
Other Skills: specific to your project and your future career
The project might require you to demonstrate other skills as well. Attributes and Aspirations may help you practice some of those. You can explore all the skills available using the Skills Map. Your programme may offer other skills specific to your discipline, the library and the Centre for Academic English also provide courses.
Showcasing Your Skills in Your Personal Statement or Expression of Interest
To evidence any skill, you need to show a shortlister that you have used the skill before. When writing a personal statement or expression of interest, this can be done through storytelling. The STAR format is a good formula to structure your examples.
For instance, one of Rachel’s goals for her StudentShapers project was to develop her design skills. Here is how she described that for a future application using STAR. Firstly, she mapped it out:
- Situation – StudentShapers to develop design skills
- Task – Develop content for social media to promote the project
- Action – Did an online course, produced sample content, got feedback
- Result – content used on social media.
She then created a statement for her application to evidence that she can create social media content:
While I was working on a collaborative project to develop a maths catalogue to support incoming students to Imperial, I was able to develop my design and promotion skills. We wanted to promote the catalogue on social media so I offered to create a campaign to do this. While I had an interest in design, I did not have the technical skills so I used my initiative and found a free course on basic design on Udemy. From this I learnt how to produce artwork and eye-catching messages using Canva for Instagram. I created a series of messages, firstly showing my friends to get initial feedback before presenting the campaign to my supervisor for their feedback. Based on this, I adapted the messages, edited the artwork and shared the campaign across Imperial to promote the maths catalogue. The campaign landed well, generating over 600 downloads of the catalogue, an average of 200 likes per message and many positive comments from the target audience. From this experience I have learnt that enjoy all elements of the design process and I look forward to doing this again in the future.
To find out how to evidence your skills in CVs and other recruitment stages, visit the Careers Service website: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/careers/applications-and-interviews/