Category Archives: Student Guide

Insight into Fintech day for Kent students!

On Thursday 31 October, the Success Accelerator Programme brought 15 talented second-year students to London to experience the Fintech industry. Hosted by Investment 20/20; a careers site for aspiring investment management graduates, who offer a graduate trainee programme with 42 partner companies. The students received an introduction into Fintech, with speakers from Fintech start-ups and financial services, who spoke about the developments within this emerging industry.

Following this, the group had the chance to partake in a speed networking session, with city professionals, working in a range of Fintech companies.

During the afternoon, the group were joined by Success Accelerator mentors, who networked with the students over lunch. A couple of our alumni; Sheyi Lisk-Carew, Reema Raisinghani, Luke Bewley and Michael Thurlow also shared their career insights during a panel talk, discussing their career paths since leaving Kent and their current roles within procurement, data and market analysis and consultancy.

The Success Accelerator Programme, which is sponsored by the Kent Opportunity Fund, aims to inspire students at Kent to achieve a career in the City. The programme includes students from the School of Economics, Mathematics, Statistics, and Actuarial Science and Law. Currently, there are 16 alumni mentors, all professionals dedicated to improving outcomes for those students looking to achieve their own version of success by gaining employment in London.

This was a fantastic event, which gave students an awareness of what investment management involves and its importance, how Fintech plays a huge role in the success of the industry and the opportunity to meet a variety of people who work in the sector. We would like to thank Investment 20/20 for hosting us and we look forward to visiting them again in the future.

Join us for some glow-in-the-dark fun!

Ever wondered how you could make your favourite activities that little bit more fun? Well grab your mates, put on some neon clothes, don those glow sticks and join us for this term’s UV nights at the Sports Centre!

On Monday 2 December we’ll be hosting UV sports including korfball, netball, dodgeball and many more. We’ll also be running two sessions of our very popular roller disco.

On Tuesday 3 December we’re putting on very special UV fitness classes to get your blood pumping. Afro House Hiit, BodyPump, Strong by Zumba and Spinning are all on the timetable for the evening.

Visit our UV sports night webpage for the full timetable, booking and payment details.

Give the gift of wellbeing this Christmas

This Christmas, treat someone to the unique gift of wellbeing with our vouchers for Kent Sport membership and the Physiotherapy Clinic. So if you know a student, staff member, alumni or member of the public in need of some wellbeing, then get in touch!

For all voucher enquiries*, please email memberships@kent.ac.uk

Check out the Benefits of membership and prices and the Kent Sport Physiotherapy Clinic.

*Excludes Pay to Play. Membership vouchers for University of Kent student or staff members can also be purchased at reception. This will be added to their Kent One card upon purchase. Vouchers for membership available to buy until 16 December 2019.

Disability History Month exhibition: Mike Oliver

UK Disability History Month celebrations at Kent

As part of UK Disability History Month 2019, we are hosting an exhibition in Keynes College about Mike Oliver, Kent alumnus and former lecturer, who was a key figure in the movement to secure equal rights for disabled people. The exhibition launch event will take place on Tuesday 26 November at 18.00 and is free to attend – book online via Eventbrite. It will showcase extracts of his work and personal affects kindly lent by Oliver’s widow, Joy Oliver, as well as the ways in which the University and Kent Union are trying to improve accessibility now.

The theme for this year’s Disability History Month is Disability: Leadership, Resistance and Culture. We will be asking our Kent community to engage with the exhibition and reflect on what our current culture and barriers might be, and what we can do individually and collectively to address these.

Who was Professor Mike Oliver?

Oliver studied for an undergraduate degree in Sociology and Social Anthropology from 1972 to 1975, at a time when the campus was widely inaccessible for a wheelchair-user. Mike Oliver completed his PhD in Sociology at Kent in 1979, and immediately moved to a position as Course Director at Kent for a new Masters programme aimed at Social Work professionals working with disabled people, which is believed to be the first postgraduate course in what later became known as Disability Studies.

Professor Oliver’s work examined the assumptions that disability was a medical problem, and shifted the focus away from illness and impairment and toward the allocation of resources. The medicalised model had created a label for disabled people as tragic victims, but Oliver’s assertion was that personal difficulties could be addressed as public issues, an insight that led him to develop the Social Model of Disability. The problem of gaining entry to a classroom is not because someone uses a wheelchair, but when that classroom is upstairs…a problem exists. Remove the stairs, and you remove the problem; this is the essence of the Social Model.

The Social Model of Disability has been widely adopted as the best practice model for public institutions, and is the best known theory of disability practice. As a disability activist he campaigned for the outlawing of discrimination against disabled people (Disability Discrimination Act 1995).

In 2018, Kent approached Mike Oliver to create an autobiographical film of his life, and his association with the University of Kent, ‘Kicking Down the Doors: From Borstal Boy to University Professor’, which premiered at Darwin Conference Suite during UK Disability History Month in November 2018. The film continues to receive very positive feedback and has been viewed over 3,800 times.

New Kent Student Award

The Kent Student Awards, which seek to recognise and celebrate the outstanding contribution students make to the Kent student experience, will launch a new award for 2020: The Mike Oliver Award for Improving Accessibility. We hope that the next generation of staff and students at Kent can pick up the mantle so inspiringly worn by Mike Oliver.

Relax. Recharge. See Art.

You’re not alone if you find you need some headspace this term. The charity Art Fund have created a ‘Calm and collected’ report which found that nearly half of us feel anxious regularly. They also found that while 63% of us find a visit to a museum or gallery helpful in de-stressing, only 6% of us go regularly.

With a Student Art Pass you can unplug in a sculpture park, time-travel to past civilisations, get lost in a painting or make a local museum café your main hangout space – all without having to worry about the cost.

Apply before 15 December to get 100s of museum discounts across the UK, 50% off major exhibitions and access to paid opportunities in the arts – all for just £5 a year.

Purchase a Student Art Pass.

Join our Medway photoshoot and receive a £10 Amazon voucher

Fancy taking part in the University’s photoshoot on Tuesday 12 November? It can be a lot of fun and for every student who takes part, we’ll be saying thank you with a £10 Amazon voucher.

You don’t even have to pose! Most of our photos merely require you to sit and chat to your fellow students in various locations around the campus. Sounds good?

We have three photography slots to choose from:

10.15am – 11.15am

11.30am – 12.30am

12.30pm – 1.30pm

To volunteer, simply email Karen (kad@kent.ac.uk) in the Publishing Office as soon as you can. State in your email which time slots you can manage. And if we book you for more than one slot, you’ll receive more than one voucher.

BAG week – save the date

Belong and Grow – it’s your BAG week, or #BAG week took place in May 2019. The aim of the week was to celebrate diversity, promote wellbeing and encourage learning for all staff and students. The week encompassed Learning at Work Week, EDI, Mental Health awareness, Deaf awareness week, IDAHOT and the staff networks. Every event was under the umbrella of one of the aims of the week. Our ethos was that there should be something for everyone – find your ‘BAG’. What’s one person’s bag, may not be another’s.

The week involved over 40 bookable events at Canterbury and Medway – a complete variety of events facilitated by Kent staff:

Wellbeing events, such as Mindfulness, Yoga, Tai Chi, a guided walk around the Labyrinth and Reflexology.
Digital training, such as Mind Mapping, MOOCS, and the digital future.
EDI/Protected Characteristics sessions, such as LGBT allies, Non-Binary, You don’t look your age, Unconscious Bias, Deaf awareness.
New skills and hobbies, such as writing, crochet, knitting, Park Run.
Drop in sessions about Apprenticeships, Careers, a #MeToo Harassment session and our Uni Kent Boob team ran CoppaFeel information sessions.

Kent Sport also put on special events, such as Japanese Swordsmanship, lifting and many more; making the overall total more than 50 events, all open to staff and students.

Over 400 people enjoyed events during BAG week 2019. Every event was about learning; whether a new skill, developing existing knowledge, participating in discussion, or just relaxing as part of learning how to look after your wellbeing at work.

AND we are doing it all again in May 2020, so save the date – w/c 18^th May 2020.

If you have an interest or speciality and would like to facilitate a BAG week session for us in 2020, please email LDev@kent.ac.uk

Management Undergraduate of the Year Award returns!

Are you looking for a future career in management? Do you have good customer service and communication skills?

The Management Undergraduate of the Year Award celebrates all of this!

You could be on your way to winning a summer placement with Enterprise in these simple steps:

1. Go to https://undergraduateoftheyear.com/management and register

2. Answer the question set by Enterprise. The Careers and Employability Service can read through this before you submit if you would like support – all you need to do is book a quick advice appointment on Target Connect.

3. Complete three online tests

If you get through these stages you will be invited to a telephone interview and assessment centre, which the Careers and Employability Service can support you with through our Quick Advice scheme.

The deadline for the awards is 31January 2020.

Good luck!

Between landscape and abstraction exhibition in Keynes College

Keynes College is delighted to house ‘Between Landscape and Abstraction’, a new exhibition of paintings by Angela Rumble and David Hayward which can be admired in the Atrium, as well as in the Keynes Gallery on the first floor of the College, until 15 December.

The work of these two artists may appear quite different in both style and technique but all the paintings in this exhibition are profoundly linked to elements of landscape – to organic growth, material substance and transient experience.

There are obvious structural differences between Angela Rumble’s web-like compositions and David Hayward’s layered approach but perhaps the main distinction lies in methodological direction – Rumble works from the real towards abstraction while Hayward begins with the abstract and then informs with the real.

Angela and David are no strangers to the College, as ‘Uncertain Places’, a very successful joint exhibition of their work, was held there in 2015, and it is a pleasure to have them back!

All paintings in this exhibition are for sale. Prices on request from the Keynes College Master’s Office – keynesmastersoffice@kent.ac.uk or direct from the artist.

Angela Rumble website, angela@hernhill.plus.com

David Hayward website,: dwhayward@btinternet.com

Reptile and amphibian talk celebrates DICE’s 30th birthday

A talk on ‘The Global Trade in Reptiles and Amphibians over Three Decades’ will mark the 30th anniversary of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE).

The talk by Professor Richard Griffiths, Professor in Biological Conservation, will take place on Thursday 21 November from 18.00-19.00, in Grimond Lecture Theatre 2, Canterbury campus.

The talk is free and open to all. Please come along to this celebration of DICE and its work!

DICE, based in our School of Anthropology and Conservation, carries out world-class training and research with a focus on biodiversity conservation that benefits people.