I had meetings today with the Activities Officer of the Union of Students and with the Director of the Careers Service. A central aspect of both meetings concerned what I will call 'degree+' ideas.  I think these ideas need to be uppermost in our minds as we move towards the induction and welcome of new students later this month. So what is the degree+ idea?

Employers are increasingly telling universities like us that they take it for granted that whatever actual degree school a stduent has been studying in they are likely to be analytical, articulate, skilled in project work and project management, and able to work in teams.  These attributes (enshrined in the 'Sheffield Graduate' concept) can apply to students in English, Sociology, Chemistry, Computer Science or whatever.  We know that between 60 and 70% of graduate jobs do not specify any particular discipline.  And some work I asked our Careers Service to undertake a few years ago showed that even in our degree programmes that carry professional accreditations a significant proportion of graduates do not enter the expected vocation related to their degree (80% not doing so in one extreme case).  Among recent ex-students of my acquaintance I can think of an electrical engineer who is a merchant banker, a historian who is a project manager, a geographer who is now a craft brewer, and a politics graduate who works on broadband installation in housing projects.

When employers are looking to take on graduate staff from among the thousands who present themselves with good degrees (or good degree prospects) from good universities, how do they choose?  I do know employers who use a simple metric such as eliminating all those who cannot spell or punctuate their applications correctly.  Others (rightly) reject those who have scissored and pasted a previous application into a new form without changing the name of the organisation they are applying to.

But many choose on the basis of degree+ - the things that a student has done and achieved alongside their degree.  It is the work experience (even at a relatively low level); the volunteering activities; the positions of responsibility taken with a sports team; the overseas travel; the experience of business plan competitions and other enterprise activities; the representational roles within departmental, student union or university governance that really count to many potential employers.  They say that our students are sometimes a little complacent and believe that they will walk into a 'good job' as a result of having a good degree from a good university.  We need to disturb that complacency and get the degree+ message across to our new students, particularly our first year undergraduates. Our graduates need to differentiate themselves and degree+ can help.  

I have been delighted in the last few days to find that the Students' Union officers share my views on this. In less than two weeks time they and me, with the Head of Student Services, will be addressing all the 5500 new undergraduates with a similar message - that degree+ is vital for their future success.