I am currently volunteering as a mentor with University College London, UCL’s First-Gen Society Mentorship Programme. In short, the mentorship programme is to share job hunting and work experience with students who are the first generations in their families to have entered higher education i.e. universities. As the organisation recognises the competitive advantage that other students have from their familial networks, this organisation aims to narrow that gap by matching First-Gen students to volunteer mentors.
I think the mission of this student society is brilliant.
But even more than that; the students that actively organise the societies are remarkable. They are setting themselves up for a brighter future.
University, as is, is already tough for most people. Lectures, tutorials, assignments, course work and examinations (and university drama) take up most of their time during the semester. Because of that, students who are actively involved in extra curricular societies are putting themselves for quite a challenge. On top of that, students who push themselves to be part of the leadership team of societies are pure fighters!
Students leaders sit on golden hill of personal development opportunity
The students who have had the courage to position themselves in leadership position have attained a level of opportunity higher than their peers.
First of all, let’s put aside whether they are actually good at organising and managing their societies. By this point in their lives, most students would have minimal opportunities for attempting such a challenge. So, their actual performance is not the point that should be focused on. The highlight point is the opportunistic seat they are in.
They need to get a group of people to work together.
As obvious as this sounds, this opportunity is rare to find before you enter a workplace. When you are in a student society with a clear mission, you have in front of you an objective to reach. You have events to organise, presentations to make, and newsletters to send out. But you have limited resource, and more importantly few people to help you achieve your goal. Student leaders have to navigate their way to get their group of people to work together to achieve their goals. With the nature of student societies being serious enough that you have your social reputation at stake, but not serious enough like risking your neck at a company; student leaders have a perfect test-bed where they can experiment and practically learn this skill.
They are required to express their thoughts and ideas explicitly to the public.
This is another golden stage that student leaders have. An important soft skill that is sought out by all companies and employers is the skill of communication. A good communicator is one that is able to express their rationales and thinking in a clear contextual manner. Bad communication in companies could lead to a lot of resource waste and worse still, damage to the business. Though this interpersonal skill is one that a lot of people emphasise on, in University, there are few and far in between chances you get to actually sharpen the skill.
Student societies present to you a stage for you to practice it. The reward could be great when you are able to express your ideas and receive validation from your peers regarding those ideas. This would further strengthen your reputation as well as confidence. The worst thing that could happen from you practicing communication is that they may think your idea is not a good idea for the team. They move on and you move on to further improve your communication skills. No serious repercussions.
They expose themselves to disagreement and criticism.
The other side about having to speak your mind when you are a student leader is that you will be vulnerable. As a student leader, your ideas and thoughts are open for others to oppose and criticise. Those opportunities to defend your ideas and to accept rejection are great ones. Plenty of times we would see people break down when they get rejected or criticised at their workplace. They immediately think that they are no longer a worthy part of the team. This type of mental state is a weak one, and would benefit a lot from some tempering. The earlier you can learn to take criticism, the more capacity for learning from those criticism you will have. The leaders in those student societies are in the perfect situation to train themselves in this regard.
So, I am no longer in university. I am already working. How can I simulate such an environment?
Projects. Group projects. That’s your answer.
Go start one today!
If you are not sure where or how to start, message me. I’ll gladly help kickstart one for you! Message me on Twitter.
Sincerely,
Ruiz