On the 6th of April, EPIC Assist welcomed ten students of Andragogy from the Comenius University in Bratislava for a week of careers counselling at the office in Edinburgh. As the exchange, funded by the Slovak government, was complementary to our Erasmus+ youth project, we were more than eager to get involved.
The students were put through their paces by Zuzana Záhradníková, a marketing expert from technology giant Dell, and Filip Ambróz, HR specialist and PhD student in Working Psychology.
We were also delighted to have the contributions of Edinburgh Napier and Queen Margaret Universities, who over the course of two days took our students for a tour of their careers service facilities, introduced their impressive student support mechanisms and even offered the opportunity to participate in classes.
Set up in our training in central Edinburgh, Helen Stringer of the Edinburgh University Careers Service popped in to share her knowledge, as well as Kelly Barbour of ScotGrad, who sparked the students’ interest with her graduate placements across the country.
A little haggis and a lot of teacakes later, the students had gained a brilliant overview of the diverse student careers support offered by some of the capital’s biggest universities. Most on the exchange will finish their undergraduate degrees next summer. We can only hope that in their final year they will take initiative in their graduate job search, and perhaps serve as ambassadors for EPIC Slovakia’s campaign to develop careers counselling in their home universities.