Student Team Working Awards: a student's view
Published on 7 March 13
The Student Team Working Awards are your chance to shout about something great you've done as part of a team, both as part of your studies and outside academic life.
With £500 up for grabs, it's definitely worth entering. But don't take our word for it: Maths student Tom writes about his team's victorious experience last year:
I was a member of the team of Maths PASS coordinators, which essentially means we ran the peer support scheme for our School, with support from our staff coordinator and Students as Partners sabbatical. In Maths, getting the concept of PASS across to students and leaders can be quite difficult, as its very easy to just tell people the answer, as opposed to 'facilitating' their work. So we took it upon ourselves to really push home these ideas, with the help of encouraging use of facilitation strategies and games, better planning of sessions, regular training and 'debrief' discussion hours with leaders.
| We found that the more effort we put into planning these debriefs with the leaders, the more effort they put into their own sessions with students. We organised extra sessions to give something back to our leaders, such as running sessions on careers and CV building. We also developed advice sheets based on the opinions of students across the school to help students when choosing their course options. Let's be honest, before you start the course who really knows what 'algebraic topology' is about! |
"If you are in a team and have worked hard then really do apply." |
We felt - and others had told us - that we'd done a really good job of improving the scheme. So we decided to enter the Student Team Working Awards. The form was pretty thorough, around four pages of essay style questions to answer. As Maths students, none of us had written so much as a paragraph of work since A-levels, so that was more challenging than the running PASS! But we powered through, thinking long and hard about some of the answers to the questions we were asked.
On the night of the awards at the Palace Hotel, we found we were up against some pretty tough teams. One team had set up their own newspaper, and others had won their sports league, and so we honestly thought we had no chance! By the time the third and second placed teams had been announced we were just happy to have had a good night.
"It really was a great feeling to know the extra hard work that we'd put in had been recognised" |
When we found out that we had won the Extra-Curricular top prize, it really was a great feeling to know the extra hard work that we'd put in had been recognised. Not only that but it's great proof that we maths students can work as a team, we don't just sit in our room and mess with Greek symbols. That's somewhat helpful at interviews. Yes, the amount of work we did as coordinators was more than we expected, and our decisions to do extra work really added to that, but the award really made it feel worthwhile. |
If you are in a team and have worked hard then really do apply. We seriously thought we had no chance, and it just goes to show you don't have to change the world or have something tangible like a trophy to be recognised as a hardworking team. Not only that, but you the awards evening you're invited to is a really good fun - and free - night out.