The Employability Points Scheme was one of the reasons why I chose to study at Kent. I think it's a very unique scheme, which encourages students to take part in co-curricular activities and be rewarded for their hard work by giving them the opportunity to undertake valuable work experience placements. Employers also benefit by getting a skilled student to work for them.

Throughout the academic year, I took part in various activities, which allowed me to accumulate almost 900 points. I was then offered the chance to apply for several rewards. There is such a wide variety of employers to choose from, so I was certain that find something that interested me. I was given the opportunity to attend a staff training session on project management at Folkestone & Hythe District Council. I also interviewed with MidKent College and was successful. I look forward to starting my work experience placement with them soon. 

I was fortunate to be invited to the Employability Points Rewards Evening in Medway on 5th June 2018, which was a celebration of students' participating in the scheme. It was great to see so many students involved, especially those who had received an award for achieving the highest number of points in different categories.

I had heard about the Employability Points Scheme before I came to Kent, so as soon as I enrolled as a student I couldn't wait to get started on earning some points! During Freshers' Week I completed the Careers Award on Moodle, which was a very useful tool for self-reflection and thinking about what I wanted and didn't want in a career. I completed all of the quizzes, which were on various aspects of job-hunting, such as CV writing, application forms and interview skills. I arranged a careers appointment with Bruce Woodcock, who was also very helpful and gave me advice on alternative ways of finding vacancies with smaller companies. Without the help of the Careers and Employability Serivce I may not have been able to secure my 12-month work placement with Capacitas, which I'll be starting this September.

Being a great fan of TED Talks, I was excited to learn that Kent ran its own TEDx Society. I opted to volunteer for the Audio and Video Production Team, which was responsible for organising the sound and video recording on the day, and also photography. We arranged weekly meetings to decide each team member's roles. We overcame many obstacles, including the venue being changed the day before the event!

The main event took place on 3rd March 2018, in the Grimond Lecture Theatre. We arrived early, around 8.30am, to start setting up and photographing the speakers. The day was a great success, with speakers, poets and a dancer, expressing their own interpretations of the theme of "Discover the Truth".

Due to the careful planning and hard work of all the volunteers, the whole day went as planned without any issues. I look forward to seeing the final videos of the talks and my photographs featured on the TEDx University of Kent website.

Having a keen interest in the digital arts, I decided to join the Digital Media Society at Kent. I attended all of their workshops, which were fun, interactive, and taught by friendly students. The workshops I took part in included: Adobe Photoshop, 3D Modelling with Maya, and Virtual Reality, where I had my first experience of using a VR headset and editing a 360° video. I also participated in the workshops run by MEDIA31, which taught the basics of typography and logo design.

As one of my hobbies is DSLR photography, I joined the UKC Photography society. The society organised several day trips, one of them being the Canterbury PhotoHunt where we wandered around Canterbury searching for various items to photograph. The workshops I attended covered topics such as camera settings, night photography and sports photography. I also took volunteered to take part in a "Show Your Work" session, which involved presenting my photos to the rest of the group.

The Employability Festival ran from 23rd October to 3rd November 2017. As I was looking for an industrial placement at the time, I made the most of the Festival in order to maximise my employability. The events I attended were:

• School of Computing: Group Skills Workshop
• Whatever Next?
• Volunteering: Become More Employable
• Match of the Day: The Benefits of Mentoring
• Future Proof
• KentSTEM: Internships Expo
• Preparing for the Careers Fair
• JobShop Recruitment Fair
• Careers Fair
• Zombie Assessment Centre
• Swiss RE: Insurance for Tomorrow
• Swiss RE: Nobody Dreams of Working in Insurance
• Networking Know-How
• How to be an Entrepreneur
• School of Computing CV Writing
• How to Successfully Run a Society?
• Do I Need My Own Website?
• Work and Study Abroad Fair
• The Employability Points Scheme
• Civil Service Fast Stream - Mock Assessment Centre
• Get the Job You Want - the Ideal CV and Interview

The Kent App Challenge was the first competition I entered at Kent. My Computer Science coursemate Asha Burathoki, and I, decided to take part because we are both naturally competitive and wanted to learn about entrepreneurship. It was where we first met Olcay Kilincci, an MSc Business Management student.

We met on a regular basis to discuss possible app ideas, and finally decided to focus on the problem of student isolation at university. Our business concept, originally called "Navvy", was an app which helps student to navigate their social life at university, become more aware of events around campus, and ultimately to make new friends. 

We decided to allocate different roles to each team member, with Asha working on marketing, Olcay researching methods of monetizing the app, and me being responsible for the design and user experience. We attended all the workshops, and kindly helped by Sophie Taylor-Gammon, we were able to deliver an engaging presentation.

On the day of the pitching event, we nervously waited outside the lecture theatre to be called inside. It was our first pitch and did not know exactly what to expect. As we delivered our pitch, we became more comfortable, but when it came to the questions we didn't quite know how to handle them, and felt that we could have prepared more thoroughly.

Unfortunately we did not win the competition, however, at a later date we were asked to pitch again to a group of student developers who were choosing projects for their dissertations. By this stage we were much more prepared and handling the questions was easier as we could apply our learning from the first pitching experience.

In order to develop my business skills even further, I undertook the Enterprise Skills Award on Moodle. It provided a good introduction to starting a business and I hope to put this knowledge into practice in the near future.

I chose to take the Business Start-Up Workshops run by Study Plus which was led by the excellent instructor Dave DiCara. Throughout the five weeks of the course, we learnt about the main aspects of business, including identifying the customer, creating a cash flow forecast, tax and VAT, and marketing. 

I took part in a weekend trip to Essex Outdoors from 24-25th March 2018, which was organised by Eastern Arc (a partnership between the University of Kent, the University of Essex and the University of East Anglia). For the first time, I tried out my skills on some outdoor activities such as the aerial runway and zip wire. I was terrified at first, but after being so high up for a while I realised that it was not as bad as I initially thought, as is generally the case with most things in life. I am now much more confident when faced with heights!

We were placed in groups of 6 students, with two students from each university, and we were introduced to the United Nations sustainable development goals. The task was to think of a problem and an entrepreneurial solution which was based on one of the sustainable development goals. The challenge was being able to think about a feasible solution, carry out research, and put together a pitch in such a short period of time, which wasn't helped by the extremely intermittent internet connection!

In the end my team came up with "EcoSwitch" - a device which can be plugged into a mains outlet and monitors how much electricity is being used in your household. The device can be linked to an app on your smartphone, so you can monitor your usage wherever you go and turn devices on or off remotely. The device can also be used to monitor gas and water usage. 

The best part of the weekend was having the chance to meet and interact with students outside of Kent. We hope to meet again in the future to work on developing a business idea.

The Business Start-Up Journey (BSUJ) is a series of workshops run by the Kent Business School, teaching Computing and Business students the skills and knowledge to become a successful entrepreneur. 

Asha, Olcay and I attended as many of the workshops as possible, because we were eager to learn as much as we could. The workshops we attended were:

• The Business Start-Up Journey Launch
• Business Bootcamps
• Working Lunch 1: Market Research
• Working Lunch 2: Market Research
• Working Lunch 3: Testing
• Working Lunch 4: Google Digital Masterclass
• Business Bootcamp
• Mentoring
• How to Sell on Amazon
• Business Start-Up Journey Showcase

With mentoring from industry experts, we refined our business idea "Navvy", coming up with new ways to monetize the app and improving the business model. Eventually we re-branded our app as "TagNav" because it more clearly reflected the feature called Tag Along - which allows students to create events and let others tag along (join). We also changed out pitching strategy, relating the story of a character called Bob, who comes to university and quickly learns that reality is very different from expectation...

We were delighted to be announced as one of the finalists of the BSUJ competition, and the final pitching event took place on 4th April 2018 (after I had pitched at Big Ideas!). We pitched to a panel of judges as well as other students, and apart from a minor technical glitch with the PowerPoint slides, our pitch was delivered very well. Again came the tricky questions from the judges, so we remained calm and answered as best as we could.

Even though we were not one of the winners of the competition, the BSUJ was a great learning experience, which has taught us so much about business, delivering a pitch, and team working skills. We are thankful to Adam Smith, Jason Marshall and Rebecca Smith for dedicating time out of their busy schedule to help us along the Journey.

Logo design by Sybil Mayard

Lower photo by Sybil Mayard

Photo by Ady Kerry / Kent Business School

The third competition I entered at Kent was the Big Ideas Competition, run by the Hub for Innovation and Enterprise. I submitted business plans for three ideas, and one of them, called "Codable", was chosen to progress to the next stage, which was to pitch the ideas to a panel of judges.

Codable is an online platform which connects Computing students with potential employers. Conversion students often struggle with online coding tests, which prevents them from gaining interviews with top employers. To help solve this problem, I came up with the idea of a platform where students can choose programming projects, upload the solutions to the website, and allow employers to view the code and select suitable candidates for interview.

On the morning of 4th April 2018 I entered the conference room at the Hub to pitch my idea. It was the first time I had pitched alone. I delivered my presentation, trying not to show that I was nervous and hoping that I made myself clear. Before I knew it, 10 minutes had gone by and once again came the questions. I tried my best to convince the judges that my business idea was realistic, feasible and fulfilled a real need.

Two days later, I was thrilled to receive a phone call informing me that I was chosen as the winner of Big Ideas! In August I will go on an all-expenses paid trip to Virginia Tech in the USA where I will present my business idea at the Global Entrepreneur Challenge. In addition to that, I have one year of access to desk space at the Hub and mentoring from Santander.

This has undoubtedly been the highlight of my time as Kent and my greatest achievement so far. I wish to thank Marcus Wright and Elena McCaffrey for their assistance in making all the necessary arrangements for my trip.

Photo by Matt Cook Photography

The Global Skills Award (GSA) is a series of lectures and workshops designed to increase students' awareness of current global issues. I particularly enjoyed Dr Kevin Dutton's lecture on the "Wisdom of Psychopaths" which challenged the preconception that all psychopaths are violent and criminal. The workshops I attended were all run by knowledgeable tutors and helped developed relevant workplace skills like team working, leadership, careers management and delivering a presentation. I'm very pleased to receive my certificate and gold pen set!

Photo by Asha Burathoki

On 11th June 2018 I attended a training session at Folkestone & Hythe District Council (FHDC), which was focused on project management. We learnt about the project life-cycle, methodologies such as PRINCE2, Agile and Six Sigma, and techniques for managing risk, time and stakeholders. It also gave me an insight into how projects are managed at the FHDC. The techniques I learnt will be applicable to any project which I am involved in in future, and as I plan to develop a career in IT, the Agile methodology is particularly relevant. I would like to thank Steve Pamphilon for leading this workshop.

Project stages at the FHDC

Having completed the Business Start-Up Journey, I was invited by ASPIRE to the TechXLR8 expo on 12th June 2018, as part of London Tech Week. Hundreds of companies were present, and gave us the chance to experience some of the latest technologies, such as augmented reality, virtual reality, smart locks and 5G. It was also a good opportunity to network with potential employers. Overall, it was a fun and informative day out, and I plan to return for next year's event. Once again, I would like to thank Rebecca, Adam and Jason for organising this event.