One of the big decisions in the first few weeks is whether to join any societies, and if so, which ones. To help you along, SCAN interviewed the Presidents of three leading Management School affiliated societies; Bright Futures, the Marketing Society and the Business and Sustainable Development Society.
Bright Futures
Firstly, we spoke to Bright Futures, one of the largest and most established societies on campus. This year, Marie Kazhimuratova, a third year undergraduate studying Business Economics, is leading the society.
What is Bright Futures?
Bright Futures is more than a student society, it is a national network of talented individuals around the country, who are looking to develop their employability skills and network with like-minded peers and career professionals. As a society we run a series of events throughout the year with top graduate employers, some of which are skills sessions, as well as socials with other management school societies and employer presentations.
How did you become involved?
I became involved in Bright Futures in my first year, when I attended the annual event “Dinner With Industry” in November. Even though I didn’t attend the Fresher’s fair and wasn’t involved in the society up to that point, I had no trouble buying a ticket for the event and attending with my friends. It was a great experience and I gained a lot of invaluable connections that evening, which led to me attending more Bright Futures society events and later becoming a Corporate Liaison officer for the exec committee.
Do you provide help and advice for first year students who may want to apply for a Spring Week programme, or internships for the summer?
This year is the first time our society will be hosting an event in collaboration with LUMS careers, designed specifically for 1st-2nd year students who are looking to apply for these programmes. At the event the specialist from an industry and a member of the careers team will provide students with insights into the recruitment process and also the different programmes that are available to students, so the members can go back home with the knowledge and do additional research on these vacancies.
Do you have any events planned for the first few weeks of term?
As an introductory event Bright Futures will be hosting a “How to Get the Best Graduate Job” event on the 12th of October (Monday). The event will run in collaboration with the national Bright Futures representatives and should provide students with useful tips and tricks for getting started with job/internships applications. On Tuesday the 13th October we will be running the previously mentioned event for first and 2nd year students, the “Head Start Event”. We are also planning to hold the society exec elections in the 3rd week of the term, and we highly encourage anyone interested to run for a position with us to get involved with organising and planning the fantastic events this year!
How can students sign up?
For any information on the events’ date, time and location students should look at our Facebook page, where we post regular updates about all events and what our exec committee has been up to!
Marketing Society
The Marketing Society is being led by Siya Deshmukh for 2015/16. Siya is studying Media and Cultural Studies. Like Marie, Siya is a third year undergraduate.
What is the Marketing Society?
We offer students with interests in the marketing field a platform to share their expertise, and build a stable social network. By bringing together students, we challenge them, inspire them, and encourage them to share or create ideas. We encourage thinking outside the box and offer our members great opportunities to implement their talented minds.
Is the society open to non-Marketing students?
Of course! We have members from a range of courses. Just have an enthusiastic drive for marketing, advertising, and entrepreneurship.
What would you say are the three main benefits of being a member of the Marketing Society?
We hold a strong sense of community and encourage high involvement, keeping a constant balance of work and play. We constantly post any job, internship, or placement opportunity that major companies contact us for. We offer a wide range of skill sets to our members, due to our various guest speakers, society collaborations, and international involvement with leading universities around the world.
Do you have any events planned for the first few weeks of term?
Definitely, we have events on the first three weeks to allow members to integrate themselves into the society. After that, we will hold events fortnightly in order to keep our members involved and inspired. Keep a look out on social media for all event announcements!
How can students sign up?
At our desk at Fresher’s Fair, or through emailing us your name, LUSU number, and contact details to marketing.soc@lancaster.ac.uk. Looking forward to the great academic year ahead!
Business and Sustainable Development Society
Last but not least, we speak to Robert Gheorghiu, a third year undergraduate studying Philosophy and Politics and the current President of the Business and Sustainable Development Society.
What is the Business & Sustainable Development Society?
The Business & Sustainable Development Society is a society for students who are interested in starting and developing businesses in a sustainable manner and/or wish to learn about the fields of business and sustainable development. We hold that business has the fundamental purpose of ensuring human well-being and every aspect relevant to it.
More specifically, why did you chose to emphasise sustainability?
The fact that humanity’s way of conducting its affairs on this planet has become unsustainable due to pollution, limited resources, overpopulation and vast inequality is pretty obvious and a large segment of this major issue is caused directly by the our economical processes. To put it simply, business leaders are responsible to some degree for this issue, but they also have the means to correct this to a large extent.
What would you say are the main benefits of being a member of the society?
Who said anything about benefits? Just kidding! I would say that, first of all, this society helps students get a good idea about the activities happening on campus regarding, or related to, the topics of business and sustainability. There are several teams on campus composed of brilliant people who organise events focused on these topics – the Lancaster University Enterprise Centre and the FASS Enterprise Centre just to name a few – but, for some reason, not all students find out of these things… Luckily, Simon Harrison – Lancaster University’s Enterprise Champion – has taken note of this and, together with his team, has developed a mapping exercise to identify all of these opportunities and ‘connect the dots’, so to speak.
Secondly, we organise events, workshops, roundtable discussions, business challenges for students so that we can learn about the process of business-making and sustainability-related aspects from people that have already done it. Thirdly, these events provide the basis for students with similar interests to meet and create businesses together. Thus, I would separate this process into 3 parts: (1) learning, (2) networking, (3) developing business.
Do you have any events planned for the first few weeks of term?
We are in the process of organising ‘The Business Chat-Room: 3rd Edition’ for somewhere around the third or fourth week of term. This is a certain type of networking event for students to meet various entrepreneurs and individuals specialised in business-making and sustainability-related aspects, and learn about the various opportunities existing on campus – approximately 10 guest speakers will be invited. This is our flagship event and has proven to be very successful in previous editions.
Shortly after this, we will hold society elections for the position of President. The current executive board will step down and the new president will select her/his own team and be responsible for the future activity of the society.
How can students sign up?
The easiest way to sign up is to send an email to bsdsoc@lancaster.ac.uk, or by sending a message to our Facebook page www.facebook.com/lancsbsd . Our website is still in BETA version, but students can still use the membership form found on our website www.lancsbsd.co.uk . Otherwise, students can sign up at any event we organise or at Postgraduate and Freshers’ Fair, where we will be present in a few weeks.
