YGT Young People Get a Summer Taste of Strathclyde

Every summer, Young Glasgow Talent delivers our Strathclyde Summer Experience in partnership with Strathclyde University. The latest experience followed our Strathclyde Higher Education Taster from earlier in the year, where YGT young people toured the campus, learned about university life and got some fantastic advice from Strathclyde staff.

Young Glasgow Talent is completely committed to ensuring our young people are supported every step of the way when it comes to finding and following their chosen pathway. As well as providing a volunteer mentor to support them through their education, this means offering Taster experiences. Developing Tasters with our Partners ensures every young person can participate in and explore the pathway of their future. Nothing will be too overwhelming or daunting, that’s where these Taster opportunities really shine! They help provide the confidence and understanding needed to take that leap into higher education after high school.

Following YGT’s first ever Higher Education Talent Taster, was the Strathclyde Summer Experience. The Summer Experience was about giving YGT young people an even bigger taste of learning and living as a student. The Taster was put together by Strathclyde’s very own student mentors, working with the Young Glasgow Talent team. Split into groups and mixing young people with other YGT schools, pupils completed various tasks together as part of an amazing project. Those attending had just finished S3 and were moving in to S4 after the summer holidays. The perfect time to explore as much of university life as possible. To spark inspiration. To understand what their pathway to uni will look like. They all have Higher Education potential – if that’s what they want to pursue.

The two day Summer Experience additionally sets our young people up for the Strathclyde Accelerate programme which will be available to them next year. While these two Summer Experience days were about offering a broad look at the subjects available, the Accelerate programme will focus on young peoples’ preferred areas of study.

Day 1 of the Summer Experience was an induction recap for those that had attended the Higher Education Taster at Strathclyde just a few weeks earlier. Working through some university myth-busters before taking in a tour of the huge grounds.

The next element of the myth busting session consisted of some artistic requirements. The future students created an image that reflected and addressed any worries or fears that they had about going to university. Highlighting everything that they had to look forward to! They also created their own character. Using their artistic skills they deliberated and decided upon their character’s unique pathway to university and beyond. Thinking through the options that are open to the young people, they discussed whether their character would leave school in 5th or 6th year, whether they would take a gap year in between – appreciating just how many options there are when planning to go to university. They chose a subject of study for their character, which faculty they would pursue, whether they would even mix their subjects (Spanish and Law were considered for Group 4’s exercise). Would the character move to the university’s halls of residence, would they own their own flat or stay at home? Would their character work while studying – or would they consider working throughout their four months of summer holidays instead?

The next stage of the day was the Business Experience exercise. The YPs learned the essential 4Ps of business – product, price, place and promotion. They would create their very own product, outline a marketing campaign for it and present to all the other groups.

The Engineering challenge was next up for the YPs. Team work, researching, planning and construction skills were required as the challenge involved the development of a prototype bridge crossing a river. With a chief engineer also elected by each group. As well as exploring university subjects, it was an opportunity to enhance team working and leadership skills.

Day 1 came to a fantastic end with dinner and ten-pin bowling for the young people and their schools’ Pathways Coordinators.

 

Then, we were ready to roll on to Day 2. The task of the day was a Web Design project, a futuristic challenge that truly inspired! Split into groups, each group had two teams. The Creative Team and the Tech Team, providing something for all tastes. The first task was to decide what the website would be about, and then “wire framing” the site. A term used to plan the content layout for the website before you create it.

The Tech team then went on a website coding tutorial, and learned about content production. Meanwhile the Creative team gathered images. Topics ranged from university life on campus, to help with budgeting and finances. The Tech team was then tasked with putting together the website designed by the Creatives.

At the end of the day the young people delivered fantastic presentations showcasing what they had achieved!

This University of Strathclyde experience let our young people explore the many subjects and opportunities the university pathway offers. Students left knowing more about what they want to do. Feeling confident about how to achieve their higher education aspirations. A vital stepping stone to pursuing a university education.

We’d like to say a huge THANK YOU to the University of Strathclyde for providing such an informative and engaging experience for YGT young people.

Strathclyde has gone above and beyond for YGT over the years, and not just by providing Talent Tasters and summer experiences. They also provide an amazing array of support for YGT. Including mandatory volunteering as part of their Management Development Programmes for students. This has the amazing benefit of providing undergraduate students with experience of the third sector, while they contribute business and marketing knowledge to YGT! And the university also supports staff to become mentors to our young people. Ensuring quality support for school pupils who will overcome their disadvantage through discovering their talents and remaining engaged with their education.

We have many more young people signing up for Young Glasgow Talent’s help. They need mentors to make a huge difference to their confidence, educational outcomes and future life chances. Can you help them? You’ll guide disadvantaged, but utterly deserving and ambitious, young people through their education. Find out more about Becoming A Mentor.

We’re always looking for new mentors to reach all the new young people who are coming on board with the programme. Help us spread the word by letting your friends and family know how worthwhile mentoring can be!

Can your organisation help? To become involved in our Talent Taster programme, alongside our partners such as Glasgow Life and The Herald, simply GET INVOLVED! We can’t wait to work with you to offer our city’s most needy a gateway to an expanding menu of opportunities and tasters of university, college and employment.

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