 Welcome to the Greenwich Means Business podcast. Hello and welcome back to the Greenwich Means Business podcast. My name is Dardan. I'll be your host for today. We are joined today by Daniela. Would you like to introduce yourself? Yeah, sure. I'm Daniela. I'm a third year student of business entrepreneurship and innovation and thank you for having me today. Nice pleasure. So would you like to explain to us your journey into the University of Greenwich? So how did you find and choose this university? Yeah, so my journey is a bit random, to be honest, because I moved here in England in 2020 and I started university in 2021, but I didn't know about student finance. So when I saw the tuition fee I was like, okay, maybe not. So then I casually found out about the student finance from a colleague I was working with in a coffee shop and then I was, I started considering going to university here in London. However, it was already summer, so I was in a real rush to do everything, but thankfully this person put me in contact with a group of people that actually helped European students navigating the application process for you to study in the UK. So I had the support of this group of specialists and consultants and they helped me with the application process and with choosing the university as well. So there weren't many universities that they were working with, but thankfully University of Greenwich was one of those. So that's how I chose University of Greenwich because in the pool of universities that they worked with, I thought it was the most interesting one and also once I visited campus, I was like, okay, this looks great. This is where I want to be. I believe that's also a very important part to like where you study and where you spend your days. So I thought it was really exciting, but also what convinced me about University of Greenwich was the fact that University of Greenwich offered this entrepreneurship and innovation course, whereas the other ones didn't have this specific course and I was particularly interested in this and it drew my attention. So the amazing location, the amazing campus and the good reputation and the fact that they're offering this interesting course, these are the factors that made me choose University of Greenwich. Very nice and you also mentioned that you found the entrepreneurship course very interesting. So why did you choose to study entrepreneurship? What kind of led you to that? What about it appealed to you? Yeah, so as I said, I wasn't expecting to go to university straight away because I had just moved from Italy to the UK. I didn't know anything about anything, but then suddenly I had to apply in less than a month and figure out everything in less than a month before the start of the academic year. So my decision was a bit rushed and I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I wasn't sure, but still, entrepreneurship and innovation, I thought it was really interesting. What drew to me I think is the word innovation. I have always been interested in innovation and improving things, improving operations. So that's what most drew my attention rather than entrepreneurship, but I also believe that at some point in my life, I will become an entrepreneur, not now because I would rather gather more industry experience and find out what I like, rather than starting a business straight away without having a strong motivation or passion. But I know that at some point in my life, I want to become an entrepreneur. So I thought that this course would be great to give me the foundations to become an entrepreneur one day. And at the same time, it would enable me to develop business acumen and go into the working world with skills and knowledge. Yeah, absolutely. And kind of staying on that same track, what do you think you can do with a degree in entrepreneurship and what are the opportunities available for students who wish to also do entrepreneurship like yourself? Yeah, so I think what I've noticed here in the UK is that you can pretty much study anything and end up in a completely different place. I know people that study history and are working finance, et cetera. So I think we shouldn't keep a closed mind when, even if we're studying something and we find out we don't like it or that's not the industry that we want to work in, we can still keep an open mind and we can still use our transferable skills to apply to different roles or work in different industry. So keeping that in mind, I would say a degree in entrepreneurship and innovation allows you to work in any business related field to be more specific in operations for sure, project management or maybe IT as well, finance. Obviously, you don't have the analytical skills that you would get in a finance degree, but I think that this degree discourse equips you with good knowledge and skills to pursue a career in finance and all the industries that I mentioned. But obviously, I think that you can work anywhere. All the skills and the knowledge that you gather during your academic journey can be implemented in pretty much any industry. Yeah, I agree. So you also mentioned you came to the UK in 2020 from Italy, is that right? Yeah. And you also mentioned that in the UK, you can study anything and branch out or maybe have a complete career change. Is that something that maybe is a difference that maybe you can't do in Italy that you can do in the UK instead? Yeah. So from what I have observed in Italy, I don't expect to know exactly how things are. But in my opinion, in Italy, it's a bit more complicated to change your career. So for example, if you study humanities, it is very, it is usually unlikely that you can get a job in a business related field or in finance, etc. Whereas here, I've seen that happen. I've seen people studying theater history, geography, and ending up in completely different industries. So I think in Italy, it's a bit more difficult to allow for this career change also because of the overall situation of the country where there are high levels of, how do you say? Unemployment. Yes, yes, higher levels of unemployment compared to other countries in Europe or especially the UK. So, so yeah, I think it's a bit more complicated. And from this point of view, I really, really love the UK. I just really love that the value of the person and what the person can bring doesn't stop to what have you studied, what's the name of the course? Yeah, I agree. Should be like that everywhere but guess the world isn't perfect. And you mentioned that your colleagues presented you these opportunities, is that right? So would you say your initial employment when you were in the UK kind of helped you this path that you've entered right now or? Yeah, I definitely helped because I knew that someday I wanted to study at university but I wasn't determined to do it straight away. I didn't imagine that I would move here at the end of 2020 and already start studying in September 2021. I thought that getting into university was something that required more time and effort but I was working in this coffee shop and I had a casual chat with a co-worker and they mentioned that I could get student finance and they made it sound easier. Maybe I was overthinking it. So yeah, it definitely helped me because if I wouldn't have met that person or if I wouldn't have been in that specific environment maybe I wouldn't have heard about this opportunity in that moment. Maybe I would have found out about it later in life or maybe I would have researched. I don't know but it was definitely very helpful also because I had the opportunity to receive help receive support from this group of consultants so yeah, that experience definitely put me in the right path. Nice and so now you're a student at the University of Greenwich so how did you find settling into the university meeting new people, what are your classes like etc. So give us a day in the life of a student at the University of Greenwich. Yeah so as I said at the beginning I didn't know anything about anything so the first year was spent working part-time as a sales assistant and attending lectures and that's all but yeah my priority wasn't really making friends to be honest. I was really focused and I just wanted to improve my knowledge skills and improve my employability skills as well so I wasn't really looking for the typical university experience where you meet a lot of new people you make a lot of good friends and you go out and you go to clubs that's not what I was looking for but it just happened naturally that I met so many amazing people during my second and third year and today for any day if I'm at university I always run into so many people and I realized oh wow I've made so many friends over my during my journey here at the University of Greenwich and I didn't force it so that's what makes it great that by getting involved in different activities I just made a good network of friends so so yeah first year was a bit it's usually the year that you need to understand how things work and to settle in yeah then second and third year I definitely met a lot of friends and it was great so a typical day can vary it depends because I think that as a student that gets involved in many different activities each day can look very different so usually the most boring days I would say just include attending lectures tutorials and working on your assignments or tasks at the library otherwise I would be working I work part time at university as well so that's another typical day nine to five at work but otherwise I could be waking up and recording a podcast episode or I or I could be going to visit certain companies like a few weeks ago I went to visit the google office and so we were invited to attend the discovery day at google we had a quick a quick look at the building and the main areas there were a few gyms as well common areas such as rest like little restaurants inside of the building and then members of staff presented the company what google does the innovation that they are implementing and and yeah they talked about their culture as well which was really interesting so a day in the life can look very different based on the circumstances and how many activities you get involved with yeah so you mentioned the activity so can you maybe explain what these activities are and you also said you work at the university as well would you like to explain more about that yeah sure so for example I am now part of the career mentoring program so I have been assigned to a career mentor in Barclays and this person is helping me navigate the working work we're going to have one or two meetings a month where we are going to establish my goals and see how we can achieve that so this is one of the things that I'm involved with but for example I was also an annual delegate last year in the academic year 2022-2023 so I was a delegate for the national union of students me and a few others at the university of Greenwich and we attended the national conference in Harrogate to talk about student rights and how we can improve student experience in England so that was really cool as well um last year I was also involved with the society um it was the highlight society where our aim was to help students improve their employability skills by delivering workshops such as uh how to improve your LinkedIn profile your CV cover letter how to present yourself during an interview and things like that and I was the marketing officer for that and yeah this year I've mainly been involved in activities such as discovery days in companies as I mentioned before I visited google jll um chart on athletic football club as well Barclays so it was really really interesting and other activities that I took part in include the generator which is a department at university support service probably yeah something like that it's more of the like entrepreneurship support service of university so they organize every year several business consulting competitions and I took part to many of those and it was a great learning experience because they are two days long so Saturday and Sunday so you have to commit to this and they structure it in a way that you learn along the way so they deliver several workshops and then you work with your groups to create to structure your ideas your solutions and to create the presentation and pitch it in front of a jury so that is really challenging and interesting as well um I I also won first place one time so it's also very rewarding thank you yeah so also I've been involved in many activities organized by generator very nice um so you're very much involved in the employability aspect when it comes to you know your society's uh another extracurricular activity so as is the case with a lot of students not just in Greenwich but in all across England a lot of students don't really tend to focus on their future employability as such whilst they're studying they'd rather just get their studies over and done with so do you think this is a topic that has to be emphasized more um I would say that it depends because I feel like um maybe some students don't have the mental space to focus on employability as well and they prefer to prioritize their studies so it depends on your personal goals and priorities for me for example it is really important to leave university and find a job where the culture is healthy but also where I can grow professionally because I am personally a very ambitious person so um I have high expectations from my professional self so that's why I'm focusing a lot of my energies in the employability aspect because this is my goal but other people other students might have different goals or might have a different reason to why they're at university so I wouldn't say that everybody must or has to uh take part in extracurricular activities or employability activities because I understand that full-time studies um it's tough you know you you have to you have to keep up with assignments coursework and all that so but I would definitely suggest to all of the students to take part in a few activities that they like because they would never regret it because they bring so much skills soft skills hard skills knowledge and you don't even realize it you don't even realize how much you're learning and how much you're improving personally and professionally but it does bring a lot of benefits and along the way you also make a lot of friends but in my experience I noticed that there are there is a good portion of students that is interested in this service but every time that I attend this event it's always the same people it's almost the same group of people so when I would go to the generator events I would always recognize same people over and over again or when I went to the discovery days as well so yeah I would say there are probably many students that are not interested in employabilities but the ones that are they are really committed you'll see them everywhere but yeah I would definitely advise everybody to do their best to do at least one extracurricular activity each term staying on the same topic uh what would you advise students that are interested in doing extracurricular activities or maybe wanting to do a placement or internship but they don't know where to start for example yeah I wish somebody would have told me how to do this because in my first year as I said I didn't know anything about anything so I didn't accomplish much from an extracurricular point of view and that didn't help me when I was looking for internships in the summer between first and second year because I didn't get any so I would say if you're on your first year there are several activities that you can get involved in this can either be societies or competitions organized by the generator or attending the events organized by the employability team such as visiting offices like visiting Barclays and things like that so you can either do all of these but if you feel like this would be too overwhelming then I would say just find the thing that draws your attention you can either either take part in sports teams that's something that I haven't done for example but that's also very good extracurricular to put on your CV so just find at least one of these activities choose one of these and sign up for it so that you can add it to your CV and you can use the transferable skills or even hard skills that you gained with this activity in your CV and that can definitely help you secure an internship between your first and second year then I would say it's really important if you're really interested about employability and you don't want to drive crazy on your third year when you're looking for graduate schemes I would say try your best to find an internship between the first and second year if you cannot it's not the end of the world I didn't get one even though I tried so it's okay but if you can that would definitely make it easier for you during your second third and when you graduate a good way to find secure an internship in that moment is to attend inside days so spring inside days which are days organized by companies where you can where you can visit the office and shadow members of staff and you can get noticed by recruiters or build your network so it's almost like a taste today right yeah yeah yeah there are also spring weeks so that's that's also a bit longer a longer time frame and many companies organize this so just type online spring days inside the spring inside days spring inside weeks and if you can attend one of these you might get a chance to work for that company during the summer or another company might appreciate that you took the time to for this for this spring inside week or day so yeah just get involved in at least one extracurricular activity and also attend spring inside days for weeks very insightful thank you and you mentioned the generator several times so obviously it's a support service that helps students fund support and train their business ideas so what advice would you give students that want to get involved but don't know what business idea to start with or they need help with you know brainstorming and whatnot yeah so I would say that they shouldn't worry about this too much what I would say is keep an eye for generator emails that you receive and as soon as there is an event organized by the generator sign up and attend once you get to the event you will meet the organizers they're all very nice and very supportive and you will feel supported and welcomed and that will already put the foundation for you to feel more confident in creating your business idea so by attending the events organized by the generator you will get the foundations to actually think about your business idea so before you do attend any events don't worry about don't worry about the fact that you don't have the idea yet just attend the events and then with mentoring provided by the team and with the workshops that they deliver you will be able to produce a viable business idea they will support you in that so just sign up and go to the event nice very nice and are you involved in any other entrepreneurial programs outside of the university yeah so at the moment I'm an intern for the mayor's entrepreneurial program and my aim is to promote this mayor's entrepreneurial competition to students these competitions funds business ideas the funding goes up to 20 000 pounds so if you're interested in setting up your business then definitely do apply to this competition obviously we're looking for ideas that make London a better place so it can either be a sustainable and environmental idea it can be creative it can be health related or technology related and each one of these categories will award a prize of 20 000 pounds so yeah if you have a business idea that you're interested in launching this could be a great opportunity to get some funding and kickstart your business very nice and how's it been working for the mayor's entrepreneurial program how did you get into it how did you find it etc yeah this was thanks to university actually because the employability team sent an email saying that there was this paid internship opportunity and I took it on the fly I applied straight away and then I was shortlisted for a panel interview and I'm very glad that I got the position it's I think 25 of us at University of Greenwich so a pretty oh I'm not sorry 25 in all London University all right yeah it's to a University of Greenwich but in general it's a pretty big group of interns across London and yeah it's been really really exciting journey because I have the autonomy to choose how I want to promote the competition and this can either be by presenting it during lectures or employability and generator events or by or by sharing it on social networks etc so it's been really great collaborating with my team and brainstorming to to do our best to get the to raise awareness about the competition and the part that I like the most is to motivate students to believe in their idea and and and sign up for the competition with the chance of winning because so many people don't apply because they think that their idea is not good enough so it's really good to just make people understand that they they get zero chance if they don't apply so so yeah that's the part that I enjoy the most nice and you said that your role entails you know raising awareness for this program so would you say you're very much involved in the marketing aspect in your role yeah yeah I would say that all of us interns who are involved in the marketing because our key aim is to raise awareness of the competition but then I also create marketing calendars to set up our strategy over the months across different platforms such as Instagram, X and LinkedIn so yeah I would say it's more marketing and marketing strategy focused nice and would you say this employment experience so far has shaped your future path at all yeah yeah definitely because I also wanted an internship to be honest because I think employers are always looking for graduates that already have some experience so this internship experience has I believe it will be very beneficial and it will look very good on my CV but also I've I've never been involved in a job that requires me to be creative and to decide on my own what I'm going to do and to what length I am going to put my effort so for example reaching out to lecturers to departments at universities or the way that you do your promotion is completely up to you so this has helped me a lot to motivate myself to do my own work without having somebody check without having somebody micromanaging me if that makes sense yeah understandable yeah so yeah I've improved from that point of view I'm a bit more of a go-getter than I was before yeah very nice well Daniela thank you very much you've definitely inspired me to start my own business so hopefully that will come soon pleasure having you on the podcast and see you the next episode thanks to you for inviting me pleasure thank you you can find our podcast on Spotify Apple 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