Our DANCOP team at college has organised and run multiple events over the month of June for our current students. These events inspired and influenced our students to follow their dreams and look at career options that will complement their hobbies, interests and personalities.
Students could book on to the events and attend the ones that intrigued them the most.
Nick Corston opened our week of Sparks event with a talk focused on the power of creativity.
Nick has a background in technology, creativity and communication and a Master’s Degree in Electronic Engineering from Loughborough University. He now travels across the country with STEAM Co., a social enterprise he co-founded to ‘help connect our kids with their dreams, their passion, their art – and our communities with their schools’.
He showed learners how small ideas can grow into big and impactful projects and organisations if they dare to dream big, make the most of the opportunities along their way, and “aim higher than high”.
Lucy Shepherd, a filmmaker and professional explorer of the extreme came to talk to our media students about her career and how she combined two loves, exploring and film.
Lucy said: “I am here today to give an inspirational talk to share some lessons I’ve learnt through my career so far. Also, the key ingredients that I think are important to achieve your goal or go into your career. I hope this will help distil them and get that framework to help you get into the right mindset and go for it in whatever you want to do.
One of our students who attended said: “It was cool to learn about the Amazon and some of the dangers that I didn’t know about before. I had also never thought about the effect of the weather/humidity on the camera itself when filming in nature”
Emily Penn spoke to some of our games and construction students about one of the biggest environmental issues: plastic pollution.
Emily is an oceans advocate, skipper and artist; who graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in Architecture.
She told our learners about her adventures around the planet on the record-breaking bio fuelled boat Earthrace, and how she has organised the largest community-led waste clean-ups in some of the most remote locations on the globe.
One of our students said “I liked learning about the effect our plastic use had and continues to have on the world”.
Emily showed students how impactful seizing once-in-a-lifetime opportunities can be for their future, and how varied pathways to your dream career can be.
Rose Dyson also joined us to talk to our hair and beauty students about being a young entrepreneur.
Rose entered a competition at school when she was doing her GCSEs. She managed to win £20k and start running her own business, all before her A-Level result day. Rose now runs a successful business, has networked with the likes of the CEO of Deliveroo and Dragons Den Geniuses and goes around schools and colleges to inspire the next generation to never miss an opportunity.
Pura is stocked online, in shops and on Amazon and she’s sold over 50,000 products at the young age of 22. Rose definitely inspired our students to think about the ‘Why’ and to challenge themselves.
One of our students told us that the talk “Makes me feel confident to take a risk and try new things”.