Final Reflection

All the compulsory seminars in this module have provided me with answers to my career options and possibilities in the future. The seminars certainly opened my mind to how I can use my degree to gain many jobs within the biology field but also how I can transfer my skills across to other job sectors. The guest lectures weren’t that necessary in my opinion I would of much preferred to have had more talks relating to career, research and volunteering options instead of hearing about research that’s already done.

The seminars solidified my decision to not go into the field of research. After hearing the lack of field work options available due to lack of funding this made me think that research isn’t my field as there is too much completion. To finalise my decision there is also less options for mammal field work as this taxon has been researched in abundance and this is the taxa I would have wanted to research into.

The module did help me come up with several different enterprise ideas. The ideas range from school botanical gardens for teaching to bug meals and many more. The dragons den and business plan assessments certainly aided me in finding where the foundation is when starting a new business. This side of the module was certainly beneficial.

After the lectures and workshop on CV writing I was able to construct an improved CV which of course will aid in my career plans in the future. These workshops also aided in teaching me how to network more effectively because you know what they say its not what you know it’s who you know. Sadly, due to not attending as many guest lectures as I would have liked due to illness I was unfortunately not able to initiate any new contacts in my field. Hopefully I will have more opportunities to do so in the future.

The module had many pros and cons which includes:

Pros

• Compulsory lectures were very informative.
• They provided the necessary skill making workshops to further our knowledge in the bio-enterprise field.
• The employment aspect of the series was the most useful as it was information students needed before leaving and would use straight away after university.

credit: http://ronedmondson.com/2010/11/every-organization-needs-some-good-bad-ideas.html

Cons

• The guest lectures weren’t that relevant to my field of study.
• The dragons den was a rushed workshop which was ungraded with lack of feedback.
• The feedback on the CV assignment wasn’t that useful.

Altogether the module has some great aspects but certainly needs some tweaking, but it did aid me in parts for my future career plan.

Bangor Dragons den

The dragons den was a full day 9-5 event which was designed to aid students whom wish to start their own business and how to create a successful pitch.

I do have some aspirations to start my own business, so this workshop certainly aided in showing me what needs to be focussed on when starting up.

The Brain storming

credit: https://punkbranding.com/the-perfect-brainstorm-c741693f056a

The day started with the groups being randomly selected meaning you weren’t guaranteed to be with friends which doesn’t always agree with all. This certainly made the experience more realistic as you don’t always work with friends in the real world meaning everyone had to bring their A team mentality.

The hardest part of the day is coming up with an idea that’s original but luckily, we struck gold in our idea:

The concept of our idea is to bring teaching and nature together by creating natural gardens for schools to use as a curriculum tool.

The remainder of the morning session is to build on your concept to prepare a pitch to present to three of Bangors local business owners to judge.

The Pitch

The afternoon was spent finalising the pitches and creating a 2-minute video to advertise your new business idea.

The key areas to a business pitch are:

1. Business concept.
2. Potential competitors.
3. Marketing strategies.
4. Product information.

The time of reckoning came when the pitch was delivered. It didn’t go to smooth due to a lack of preparation of speeches for each team members section. The team and myself all managed to deliver a half decent pitch that was slightly winged. Luckily the judges saw through our not fully prepared pitch and were enlightened by the raw potential that ecodens possesses.

Conclusion

In my opinion the content of this workshop was a little crammed into one day. Due to this, students weren’t absorbing all the information making the second half of the workshop pointless. One suggestion would be to run the workshop over two days, so students can get the most out of the session.

This workshop has certainly opened my eyes to how I could in the future open my own business. Obviously, this was a small foundation of what I would need to do, and further research will be needed but in conclusion this workshop was certainly beneficial for myself.

How to make yourself more employable

Bangor university employability and careers services delivered our first workshop of this module focussing on writing a suitable Curriculum vitae (CV). Having previously done a module on employability in college I went into this workshop thinking I knew the script on writing CV’s.

Of course, to no surprise I still have much to improve on my own CV.

What is the use of a CV

• Concise way of communicating relevant previous experience and education.
• A self marketing tool when attempting to gain employment. 

  

  credit: https://epmwise.com/canada-fsw-pr-order-activities/141_crop_730x365_checklist-green-tick-list/

 CV essential tick list

• Tailored towards the job. 
• Solid layout.
• Audience orientated.
• No grammar mistakes.
• Never title it curriculum vitae EVER!!

 

 

 

To my surprise there is many different types of CV not just the way I got taught in the past module I done.

Chronological CV- This CV type is suitable in most employment applying situations, it provides the appropriate qualifications and experience to match the advertisement of the job.

Traditional CV-  This CV is used to display evidence for skills that the job is requiring.

Skill based CV- This type is unique as it allows you to target your CV at the requirements of the job without direct experience or qualifications but instead focussing on the skills you have gathered in other employment.

Conclusion

In my opinion the CV workshops content was of significant use. The workshop showed all of us students who thought we knew the score on CV’s many do’s and don’ts that we had no idea about. The main advantage of the workshop was that it demonstrated several ways to tailor any previous experience towards future employment advertisements.

The workshop certainly aided in progressing and improving the style and content within my current CV. The improvements made have certainly already demonstrated how it can shape my career plans because once implemented I tested it out as I tried to gain more employment and to my surprise it worked. Altogether this workshop has been the most beneficial so far.

What’s next?

The concluding bio-enterprise workshop the careers cafe was hopefully where I could locate the direction I should go once completing my degree (Zoology W/Animal behaviour).

The workshop is built around talks from five former students of Bangor university each with their own story to spread to the eager students (myself included).

The five former students consisted of:

Bethan Wynne Jones

• Current position- Ecosystem and Climate Change officer at the Snowdonia National Park.
• Degree title- MSc in Wetland Science and Conservation, graduating in 2014

Graham French

• Current position- Lecturer in Education at Bangor University.
• Degree title- BSc in Marine Biology degree graduated in 1998 continuing onto a PGCSE in Outdoor Activities and Science graduating in 2000.

Nia Jones

• Current position- Living Seas manager at the North West Wales Wildlife Trust.
• Degree title- MSc in Ecology graduating in 2003.

Jon Cannon

• Current position- Process Manager at Dŵr Cymru/Welsh Water.
• Degree title- BSc Marine Zoology graduating in 1998.

Rhys Morgan

• Current position- Animal care technician at Bangor University.
• Degree title- MSc in zoology graduating 2012.

Each talk was based on the work and career path the guests took once completing their degree at Bangor university. Each talker had their own area of employment which gave students a more positive approach to leaving university as they showed us so many potential fields we could explore with our qualification. Every talk gave its own unique advice and guidance but there was one common theme throughout each talk which was volunteering is key.

credit: http://www.pta.co.uk/running-a-pta/boosting-support/volunteering-is-good-for-you.aspx

My thoughts

The workshop was positive overall as it provided us students with free food and drink always makes it worthwhile. The important positive is that it presented many new ways for me to use my degree (and any other biology-based degree) once conquered and highlighted the significance of volunteering. This careers cafe encouraged me to explore more opportunities in gaining new experience to aid in boosting my CV and increasing my prospects of a future career.

Haven’t I got an idea for you?

Of course, after the dragon’s den day it was time to use what we had learned and implemented in the workshop but this time doing it individually with a new idea.

What’s the plan?

Before the business plan was to be produced we had three lectures which explored all the areas that are compulsory when starting up a business.

The key areas are:

1. Concept- A sentence summarising the bases of the idea.
2. Customers- The target audience the business aims to provide the product for. Consideration is needed to the strategies of marketing the product.
3. Competitors- Highlight other businesses that provide a similar product/service as your own, but you show how your idea is better in all aspects.
4. Compatibility- This is where you identify who will work for you and what place they hold within the business.
5. Contents- This is what your business will need to function for example; water & electricity, warehouse space etc.
6. Cashflow forecast- The time line of the forecast is 1 year; the forecast shows all the money that is coming in and out each month and what sort of profit if any if made after the first year.

My Idea

image created by myself using word art.

In my spare time I enjoy doing wildlife photography but its always been a challenge to ID animals quick, so I can publish the shot online. This hinderance is what sparked my idea of starting an animal ID app. Simply upload the photo and the app does the rest of the work. The app’s target audience is to be photographer like myself. There is limited to none useful ID apps already out on the market so its why my business idea would be successful as it can fill a gap in the market. Regarding contents and compatibility, the work force is small and concise as well as the facilities needed to start the business. To my surprise with rough figures used in my cashflow forecast I could make a profit after one year of the app being placed on the market.

Conclusion

The business plan build up and writing was enjoyed thoroughly by myself as previously said I have some interest in starting my own business. The lectures aided in showing me the basics of what I need to consider if I orientate my degree towards producing a product or service to sell in the future. Overall the content of this work really aided in opening a new opportunity for my future career.

If University assessments weren’t enough

By this point in the module we have been taught how to tackle the first hurdle of gaining employment CV writing. The next step now is the make or break time the interview or in this module the assessment centre. Of course, no students knew we were walking into an afternoon of peer interviewing and self-assessing, so the session certainly raised a few blood pressures.

Rundown of the interviewing

The assessment was held in PJ hall the largest of Bangor universities lecture rooms, so we knew something serious was occurring. Nothing prepared us for being thrown out of comfort zones when the groups were randomly allocated. Now we got down to business, each person underwent an interview with the peers in your group marking you out of /5 on categories such as confidence etc. The individual who scored the highest points was then shortlisted to meet Dr Ross Piper a famous zoologist (Author & BBC present) and former Bangor university student. My aim when providing feedback to peers was to be truthful to people’s performance to aid them in improving for real situations, but I certainly didn’t want to knock anyone confidence, luckily my peers gave me the same treatment.

Time to self-assess

This part of the afternoon was a lot less tense as we were only testing ourselves and no others. The two tests I individually underwent were:

• Belbin personality test- This test is ideal, as it helps individuals learn their strengths and what sort of worker they are and what they can bring to a working environment. Each member of the group took the test and then shared to the rest of the group their results.
• Myers-Briggs personality type indicator- Each group is handed seven emails are asked to order them regarding their priority of importance. This task highlighted the different viewpoints displayed by others. The secondary use of the test I thought was to teach us to listen, trust and even compromise for other opinions if the situation arises that your wrong.

credit: https://www.freeagent.com/central/self-assessment-filing-limited-companies/

Conclusion

The content of this session once initially completing it, I thought to be unhelpful as it felt like an unproductive afternoon that I didn’t feel like I gained much beneficial information from.  But upon reflection of the session; it highlighted the areas for improvement in my interview technique, the skills I can bring to a team and finally how opinions do differ. Altogether this has improved my potential ability of gaining employment in my opinion.