Arts Success in Employability Points Scheme

Students from the School of Arts were winners at the University’s annual Employability Points Rewards night on Tuesday 6th June.  The scheme, pioneered at the University of Kent, allows students to claim points and rewards for their extra-curricular activities and is registering a higher number of students actively logging points and applying for rewards than ever before. These rewards include paid internships, project placements, work experience, training, vouchers and much more, offered by businesses and organisations, including many exciting opportunities in the arts.

One of the winning students was first-year Drama student Aleksander Angelov, who won the prize for the Highest Scoring Student Studying a Creative Degree. Aleksander has earned a remarkable 1,695 points in his first year.

He has immersed himself in University life, attending an impressive amount of Employability Festival Events with the Careers and Employability Service, as well as in-sessional English seminars with Kent’s Centre for English and World Languages, for which he became Course Rep. He has continued to improve his employability and skills through completing the Careers and Employability Award on Moodle and the Hub’s Enterprise Skills Award Module. He is the co-founder and President of the Bulgarian Society, as well as a member of the Homeless Outreach Society and T24 Drama Society. His award was presented by Dalia Halpern-Matthews, Chief Executive of Nucleus Arts.

Second-year student Jose Miguel Santos (Drama & English and American Literature) was the Highest Scoring Student from the Faculty of Humanities and received his award from Colin Carmichael, Chief Executive of Canterbury City Council. Miguel has managed to obtain an outstanding 2,310 points whilst at the University of Kent. He has worked as a School of Arts mentor, regularly attended Careers and Employability service skills workshops, completed a range of Study Plus courses, acted as a Kent Student Certificate of Volunteering Champion, a Kent Buddy and a Student Trainer, delivering training sessions to student volunteers. His commitment to volunteering has led to being nominated the Kent Union Volunteer of the Month multiple times, as a result of undertaking various projects, including the Community Clean Up, a Canterbury Food Bank collection, a Shoebox Appeal, Age UK Christmas Tree project, to name a few. Notably, he was also involved with successfully writing a funding bid for the construction of an all-weather sports pitch for adults with learning difficulties. Miguel has successfully claimed four three-week professional placements across the summer as a result of his participation in the scheme.

To find out more about the University of Kent’s Employability Points scheme click here.