Opportunity knocks

Cardiff Business School’s International Exchange and Employability, Placement and Careers services have a new home following a £180,000 investment in a new facility on the ground floor of the Aberconway Building.

The Opportunities Zone, funded jointly by Cardiff Business School and the University’s College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, launched on Thursday 5 July 2018.

The brand new learning and teaching facility is part of a transformation of the ground floor of the Aberconway Building into a student high street following the relaunch of the Undergraduate Hub and Student Support Services in October 2017.

Following an introduction from Professor Martin Kitchener, Dean of Cardiff Business School, the event welcomed a series of speakers who highlighted the benefits of the services offered in the Opportunities Zone.

Lea Bergs, who is currently enrolled on the Cardiff MBA, outlined the benefits of studying abroad by sharing her experiences of a year spent in Japan.

Fionn Lehane, a BSc Business Management student currently completing a Placement Year with Smurfit Kappa, shared her experiences of working with a world leading paper-based packaging company.

Owain Jones, a Finance Partner at Barclays, discussed the benefits of placements for students and businesses alike.

And Robert Lloyd Griffiths, Director of IoD Wales now based at Cardiff Business School, praised the two-way learning process that exchange and placement opportunities offer to students and businesses before cutting the ribbon alongside Professor Kitchener.

Professor Kitchener said: “It’s a pleasure to open this fantastic facility today knowing that it will benefit so many of our students...”

“These opportunities also impart to students a moral sentiment and sympathetic imagination towards the social and economic challenges of our time by giving them work while they learn and the chance to experience different cultures.”

The idea for the facility was first developed by Dr Sue Bartlett who recognised an opportunity to reconfigure space in the Aberconway Building following the opening of the £13.5 million Postgraduate Teaching Centre in 2014.

Plans were advanced by a working group of colleagues from the School and the University’s Estates Team before design and project management by WSP Global and BECT Building contractors brought the facility to completion.

For more information on International Exchange and Employability, Placement and Careers services, visit the School website.