With one more Open Lecture to go (on 20 March in Grimond), the Global Skills Award for this year draws to a close. Students at our final drinks reception were very positive about the programme's lecture series to enrich awareness of global and national issues, and its workshops, designed to enhance employability. Alexandros Bardoutsos thought the GSA workshops were 'excellent' and Gift Olema Asiku commented: ‘I think the overall thing for me is the friendship I got out of this … I’ve met great people, I’ve made great friends and I think that is something I would have missed if I hadn’t been part of the GSA’.

Thanks to all of you for your thoughts, hard work in workshops and input into lectures.

The summer Reward ceremony will be held on Monday 17 June between 5 and 7pm.

Launched on 5 November, this year’s Global Skills Award attracted 200 people for the first introductory lecture. Afterwards students participated in a lively ‘speed meet’, getting to know one another during a drinks reception led by the Dean of Graduate School, Diane Houston.  The Global Skills Award programme is designed to enhance global awareness and employability in a competitive job market and consists of a series of lectures on national and global issues and a programme of workshops.  It is open to all postgraduate taught Master’s students, and Brussels and Paris students were be able to view the lectures through our Moodle site.  This year participants followed the lectures and subsequent discussions on our Twitter account UniKentGlobalSk via #kentgs.   The Award now draws to a close as the final lectures are on 18 and 20 March. All participants are invited to a drinks reception after Professor Paul Sweeting's lecture on Monday 18 March to celebrate their achievements during the GSA. 

18th June 2012 marked the culmination of this year’s Global Skills Award (GSA) with a reward ceremony in Woolf college attended by over 100 students. After some fantastic presentations from some of GSA the students, Diane Houston Dean of the Graduate School presented everyone with a certificate and presentation pen. This year 176 students successfully completed the award attending a Monday evening lecture series on a variety of global and political themes and a series of employability themed workshops.

Feedback on the night was very supportive, Gary Goldfinch from Politics and International Relations commented “I really enjoyed the GSA, it really gave me some useful life skills. Because I have worked in business before I know that the skills covered by the programme were useful.” Emma Wilkins from the School of English enjoyed the workshops especially; “The GSA was fantastic, it was a great opportunity the lectures were very interesting... My favourite was the workshop element of the award. I really enjoyed the workshops they were fantastic across the board.”