Communication and Employability Skills Project

In January 2010, the School of Mathematical Sciences was awarded funding from the 2009 Queen Mary Student Experience Investment Fund to work on the Communication and Employability Skills project. 

In a recent survey of employers in terms of which soft skills were ranked the highest ranking predicted shortfall was “Communication” with the second highest in “Managing your own learning”.  In terms of hard skills the highest shortfall was “writing skills” with “leadership” coming in second.  In addition to this students’ views of themselves are that they struggle with different aspects of communication and in English comprehension. As well as the lack of skills in their own right, there is a resulting impact in confidence generally in how students present themselves.  Many students also have requested more careers guidance and in the understanding of the implications of the modules that they are studying.  There are also wider implications for the UK economy in increasing the number of graduates employed. An increase of one per cent in the number of graduates, as opposed to A-level or equivalent qualifications, leads to an increase of productivity of 0.5%.  Quantitative analytical skills are vital to any national skills agenda and to the needs of employers.

The aims of the project therefore are to address these issues and in doing so facilitate and add to the discussion both within Queen Mary and beyond to other HEIs about skills and the curriculum.

Under this project we have produced many successful and exciting outputs including a booklet entitled "where the maths you learn is used". This booklet looks at the impact of mathematics beyond the subject itself and provides a clear link from the syllabus to applications in a range of different industries. It is hoped therefore that provides extra impetus for students in their studies and starts to provide some thoughts to how a student will want to one day use his/her mathematics degree.

The other booklet that we have produced under this project is entitled Queen Mary Mathematical Sciences degree: your career your future! In this booklet primarily Queen Mary mathematics alumni talk about their careers and/or postgraduate study. The booklet is arranged chronologically through a career in that the case studies start from current students and progress all the way up to mathematics alumni who have now retired. The booklets exemplifies the various uses of a mathematics degree as well as including useful factual information for students who want to know more about each particular case study.

The videos can be viewed at: http://www.mathscareers.org.uk/viewItem.cfm?cit_id=383047