The University of Westminster offers a wide range of scholarships to its students. Available to undergraduate and Postgraduate Students, these scholarships open doors to opportunities that many students may not have previously encountered.
The Undergraduate Scholarships, in particular, offer students a choice of 5 different scholarships. These scholarships include the Home Undergraduate Great Start Scholarship, the Home Vice-Chancellor’s Scholarship, the Home Undergraduate Disability Scholarship, the Home Foundation Degree Scholarship, and the International Undergraduate Excellence Award (IEA). Each scholarship is designed to meet the specific needs of students who may not have access to the same privileges as their peers, and opens the doors to experiences and financial opportunities that they may not have had before.
I have personally had the opportunity to receive the Home Undergraduate Great Start Scholarship. This scholarship is offered to students with a household income of less than £25,000 per annum and is selected based on financial needs and a personal statement. Each year of my studies, I receive additional funding to cover maintenance costs. Thanks to this additional funding, I have had the opportunity to attend as many of my university classes as possible without worrying about whether I have enough money for my travel fares and university supplies, and it has allowed me to focus more on my studies and increase my grades.
To receive this scholarship, each year, I must complete one career development session. Each year must be different from the last. During my first year, I chose to use Forage Online Experiences as my first development session. This website provided me with the opportunity to complete online work experience simulations with brands such as Lululemon and Electronic Arts in the marketing industry. This experience not only provided me with a more hands-on understanding of what it means to work in the marketing world, but also gave me the opportunity to add something valuable to my CV.
As the job market continues to deteriorate, with rejection after rejection, and I struggle to understand where I am going wrong, being offered this scholarship has given me the opportunity to focus more on my career goals and identify the skills I need to achieve them. Time and Time again, I have been told that I simply don’t seem to have the skills required to secure work experience and have been passed over for candidates who have many years of experience and are of a similar age to me. This has been extremely frustrating as it has made me feel so far behind my peers, who already seem to have mountains of career experience, have a lot of time to focus on their goals, and seem to be in a better position to combat the ever more confusing job market that offer “work experiences” to those who already have many years of experience. However, thanks to this scholarship, it has alleviated my worries and given me more time and space to develop my skills, focus on my own goals, and earn certificates to showcase to potential recruiters.
During these simulations, you were given small mock-up tasks to complete for the business, such as writing up a marketing plan or filling out an Excel sheet. Whilst you never got graded on these tasks, it gives you insights into the tasks that you may need to perform in this role and gain the practical skills needed to present to potential recruiters. Additionally, the fact that these job simulations were provided online meant that I could complete them around my daily tasks and in the comfort of my own home, without needing to worry about additional travel fees or adjusting to personal responsibilities.
For my second year, I decided to complete a LinkedIn Learning certificate as part of my career development session. Thanks to the university, we have free access to LinkedIn Learning courses. These courses are quick and easy to complete, featuring in-depth videos that explain and discuss your chosen topic in detail. For my certificate, I chose to go out of my comfort zone and complete two certificates in coding. These short courses helped introduce me to completely new skills and careers that I would have never previously considered or thought I could enter. As I completed the course, it gave me the motivation to pursue my own self-study of coding, which led me to discover the website codex.io.
This website provides free coding education in small, bite-sized pieces, with tasks to practise your skills after every class, presented in the form of a video game. After each section that you complete, you receive XP points, similar to how you would in a game, which allows you to unlock exclusive content and community features. For example, after you earn yourself 100 XP points, you get access to their community discord server, which allows you to communicate with other individuals interested in coding, ask and answer questions and gain more understanding of what the coding industry is about. The website also features a community worlds option, similar to the games Stardew Valley and Club Penguin. It’s an open-sim game where you can decorate your own area and interact with other users to ask questions and meet new individuals who are building their own projects. After completing these career development sessions, you are required to email the scholarship team with what you have done and how you have found it useful in building your career. I believe this scholarship has helped me narrow down my interests and helped me focus on building my skills required to help develop my career further and do it at my own pace, without having to worry about whether I will be able to find relevant work experience in time or if I will even have the opportunity to do any in-person work experience for free. I hope that this has given you the confidence to also try your hand at applying to these scholarships and receive the help to feel a little more stable in your university career development.