This summer, I took part in the University’s annual Summer Teams Enterprise Project (STEP). Running for seven weeks, undergraduate students sign up for a project that they’re interested in and work in a small group to produce an output. My project was Phenomenal Bodies, which is an exhibition project highlighting the disabled experience in art, as well as disabled artists. Our brief was threefold; to come up with outreach activities; to curate for an exhibition; and to come up with ideas for the design of an online exhibition.
One of the goals of STEP is to develop your Graduate Attributes. Not only does this include completing the output, but there are weekly skills workshops, as well as meetings with your team, coach and sponsor. However, instead of just reciting the information on their website, I want to share my experience and why STEP, despite obviously being a useful thing to put on your CV, is worth considering.
Creative Careers
In May, I applied to two projects. Phenomenal Bodies was actually not my first choice; I had put an English project first. While I didn’t expect to spend my summer learning about art and exhibitions, it opened up a whole new career path for me, one that I had been vaguely aware of but hadn’t seriously considered. In fact, as someone who loves to make art myself, it rekindled some of that excitement towards being creative again. I had so much fun designing an idea for an online exhibition. It wasn’t even just the creative aspect that I have taken from this project: I learned a lot about website accessibility as well as translating an idea into a conceivable, technologically-approved reality. I felt that old myth that ‘art can’t lead to a real job’ disappear. I realised just how much is involved in a single exhibition: from curators, designers, writers, event planners – these roles have to be filled by someone.
Groupwork
And then there was the groupwork. I think every student has at least one groupwork horror story, whether that is someone who never contributed or only did so at the last possible second. Maybe it’s because we all specifically signed up to do STEP, but we had no such problems in our group. In fact, I got to experience a professional, well-functioning group dynamic. Our weekly meetings were flexible and organised (we had an agenda!) and because of this, I felt like I could bring up anything as there was space to address all potential issues in advance. As an English student, I spend so much time working on my own, so it was nice to experience the social aspects of a project for a change.
Leadership and Entrepreneurship
There were also Graduate Attributes that I hadn’t thought much about developing before I started STEP. Leadership is something that I don’t usually pursue and entrepreneurship brings to mind intimidating businesspeople in suits. Phenomenal Bodies is led by the School of Art History at the University, collaborating with other institutions across Scotland. The brief itself involved working on collaborations and coming up with innovative responses to problems (like how to make an online exhibition actually engaging). Leadership was realised in small ways, as our group was democratic, but through things like voicing problems, helping group members and sharing my own ideas, I genuinely felt my confidence grow.
Of course finalising the output was satisfying: seeing how everything had come together over the past seven weeks to create something valuable and important. Although STEP takes place remotely (which is perfect if you will be moving around during the summer), your work does not exist in some other, STEP-exclusive realm. Phenomenal Bodies is a project at the University and actually takes place across the country. Other projects, like Active Halls, have a direct impact on student life at the University.
So, not only did STEP boost my CV and my Graduate Attributes, it contributed to my self-growth. I had to forget the bad habits I had developed through independent work like perfectionism in the interests of working in a group. I got to contribute something meaningful to a project that I genuinely became so invested in and I can’t wait to attend the exhibition at Dundee University in November! STEP was the perfect stepping-stone into the next phase of my career journey.