INTERNAL STUDENTS – ‘What does being a student mean to you · INTERNAL!STUDENTS!–!‘What!does!being!a!student ... it’s not so much about the studying it ... Degree is a chance

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INTERNAL STUDENTS – ‘What does being a student mean to you?’ NAME: Simone Smith AGE: 20 OCCUPATION: Student Kingston TP01 00.02.03 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future?

It’s beneficial obviously for education reasons, as well as for meeting new people. I’m not from around here so it’s good to come to University somewhere far from home, you become more independent and you meet a variety of people and things and obviously and education wise it will help me do what I want to do.

00.02.43 Why do you think it will help you with a job? Having an education, it just shows that your dedicated to wanting to learn things, and I

think it will just look more professional to people looking for careers and things, that’s just what I think really.

00.03.15

NAME: Alex Cook AGE: 20 OCCUPATION: Student Kingston TP01 00.13.32 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? At the moment it means being away from home and meeting new people. I think in the future it will mean focusing and studying more. New place and finding out new things, it’s not so much about the studying it’s about finding a grounding here rather than at home.

00.14.12 I think in the future being comfortable with my surroundings will help me get a job, being comfortable with my surroundings will help me focus on studying more so I will be able to relax with the aspects like worrying about smaller things. 00.14.29 NAME: Sarah Francis AGE: 20 OCCUPATION: Student Kingston TP01 00.01.39 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? For me, being a student is a huge opportunity, especially this year the fees are going to go up next year so I’m really lucky to be here I think, so make the most of it. To me, this


degree is... I’m doing Journalism and Human Rights so it is a stepping stone to get to somewhere where I want to be, obviously I want to do Journalism so, even if I don’t it’s good to have a degree. 00.02.27 Why do you think that is? It’s just, I don’t know if that’s even true anymore actually. I guess its just good to stand out I suppose, it’s hard to get work at the minute. 00.02.45 NAME: Belau Ali AGE: 18 OCCUPATION: Student Kingston TP01 00.09.43 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? For now, I guess it’s something that we’ve all thought about what career choice we would like. We’ve feel like we’ve kind of set a path for the next 3 years, so now we can just enjoy it and work hard, we’ve got a mind set. Like in school, you know what you’re doing for a certain number of years, now we’ve made our choice and need to stick by it for a few years. 00.10.19 Tell me more about this path that you have set yourself, what are you striving towards? Making money, but I want to do building surveying, that’s what I’ve kind of researched about and I like the sound of it, so that’s what I want to do, building surveying. 00.10.36 NAME: Liam Davenport AGE: 18 OCCUPATION: Student Kingston TP01 00.21.16 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Getting a good job, educating myself, gaining knowledge and stuff like that. 00.21.37 Tell me more about your student experience A lot of parties, not a lot of work so far, just got over fresher’s flu so haven’t been able to go out that much, but just got over that so more parties to come I hope. 00.22.05


NAME: Chloe Homes AGE: 20 OCCUPATION: student Kingston TP01 00.29.09 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? I just think it’s important to have a degree especially with the way the government has put the fees up I think it’s made my course more valuable, especially because it’s an art course because it would put a lot of people going of Uni now. So to have a degree, an art degree, which I imagine a lot of people won’t do now because they’ll try to find other avenues to get into that will make it more valuable. I think it’s the experience as well, I think it’s an easier way to move out without support, I think a lot of people can’t do that till they’re older, so it gives you the opportunity to live by yourself, learn some life lessons. 00.29.26 Name: Alison Oakes Age: 27 Occupation: Post-Grad Student Kingston TP02 0:02:21:15 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Being a student, I guess, now that, what I’m doing is a post-graduate course so it’s a lot more about independent study than my first course was so it’s, the first time I was a student it was more kind of you meet people and have fun and the actual doing the work is a more of a side part of it and this time around I’m working towards a goal so I do have to work a lot harder and there’s a very definite outcome from my course. It’s a lot more academic and reading and writing, that kind of stuff. 0:02:59:12 Tell me a little bit more about the outcome and the goal you’re striving towards? I’m studying to be a primary school teacher so by the end of my course I should hopefully have a job in the works or at least know what sort of job I want to do, so it’s very [...] my, my work at the moment will definitely contribute towards what kind of job I get and you know the prospects for the future. 0:03:24:10 Name: Samuel Voller Age: 18 Occupation: Student Kingston TP02 0:18:30:17 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future?


What does being a student mean? Means a lot of fun at the moment. It’s an awful lot of fun going out, meeting loadsa new people, studying, just hard work and then in future I suppose it means a much better job, more opportunities [...] that’s it really. 0:18:54:24 What is it about your degree in particular that you think will help you progress in future? So you can [...] it’s a very specific degree which leads to very specific job which I know is in relatively high demand. 0:19:18:02 What is it? Pharmaceuticals, I’m doing a Masters in pharmaceuticals sciences so yeah, obviously there’s quite a narrow range of things I can go into with that and through research I found out its in relatively high demand so that’s why I went into it [...]. 0:19:35:00 How do you think that doing a masters on top of your degree will help you? Well it’s got additional modules so obviously it puts me above everyone else because not just honours so therefore I’m going to be more qualified than other people and it’s also got a year in industry so I’ll have an extra year on top of that which is much better, employers will look at that favourably and yeah it’ll give me the edge. 0:19:59:02 Name: Alice Keegan Age: 22 Occupation: Graphic Design Student Kingston TP01 0.35.57 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Being a student for me now because I’m doing a Masters Degree is a chance for me to just spend a year, you know, trying to find out who I am as a designer, creative, trying to focus on what makes me happy and what I enjoy within that sort of industry. 0.36.26 How do you feel being a student will help you progress? I think my Masters will help me progress…just help me be a bit more specific about what I want to do and just give me that extra qualification and give me a chance to sort of widen my skills so there is more choice for me when it comes to looking for jobs. 0.36.57 What do you want to do? I don’t know at the moment, that’s the thing, I have decided not to plan. I definitely want to go into a sort of design industry but doing that because I decided not to plan so that I don’t get disappointed. 0.38.00


Name: Onur Age: 21 Occupation: Student Kingston TP02 00.50.40 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? It’s a stepping stone, so get through Uni. It’s a leap up when it’s come onto your career, that’s what it means to me, it’s a stepping stone, get through uni, you’re not guaranteed a place obviously in life to get a job or anything, its a leap up, having a degree and everything. 00.51.08 Definitely social perks, one thing I believe is it’s just not about pure education, pure academics, its more how you socialise and interact in society. Name: George Stoker Age: 19 Occupation: Students Kingston TP03 2:08 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Well I want to stay in education as long as I can, you know, I’m loving the student life here in Kingston. I’ve just…I had part-time jobs before, I’ve never had a full-time job and I don’t really want a full-time job until I know I can leave uni with a decent, decent enough to get a decent full-time job. I love being student and [inaudible] 2:35 How do you feel now with your degree progressing that it will help you to get your dream job in the future? I haven’t necessarily got a dream job; I just hope that a degree would help me with a job as soon as I leave. But I haven’t really got anything in mind, I’m still in my first year so I’ve still got another two years to think about it, so I haven’t really started thinking about that yet. 3:12 Name: Ben Tonkin Age: 22 Occupation: Student Kingston TP03 14:58 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Now, getting a degree. In the future, helping with employment and just general skills you learn from doing a degree, like research, yeah.


15:16 If you could tell us more about your degree and how you hope to progress with it? OK. I don’t know really, it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster, it’s been fun. I study Geography so it’s a lot of research, a lot of interesting topics. There are a lot of different fields I can go into, I’m not really sure which at the moment, but the opportunities are there, having done a degree. 15:52 Name: Michelle Age: 19 Occupation: Student Kingston TP03 35:56 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Right now being a student means I have to work hard and try my best at what I do, especially as I have lots of exams coming up, so I just try and pass it so I can get into my second year. 36:17 And what about in terms your degree, how do you think it will help you in future Well my degree is in two parts, because I’m doing business with law, so just in case, I have a module off the law side, but just in case, business, I don’t mind being a business woman, but I’m aiming to be a solicitor, so yeah that would be good. Name: Tanaka Chiramba Age: 19 Occupation: Student Kingston TP03 46:12 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Well being a student means enjoying the experience, especially first year. I know it’s important, but it’s just everything you’ve been doing at A Level and it’s just trying to get you into the adult world and it’s not that scary just yet. So for now it’s just about enjoying the experience and having a good time. Then next year, really hitting the books and making sure I have achieved what I want to by the time I leave university. 46:46 Tell me a bit more about the student experience? Drinking. It’s drinking, meeting new people, having fun. Having memories that I know I can leave with and know that, ‘yeah that could only happen in uni’, so stuff like that. 47:03 And how do you think your degree and studying could help you in the future?


Well in the future, I think just making it through the university years shows dedication, that you actually wanted something, you didn’t drop out, you worked hard, you went with and aim and you achieved that aim. And just having that knowledge, what you learnt through university. Having a degree just gives you a boost so [inaudible due to truck] 47:42 Sorry, if you could just repeat that for us? Yeah, being a student to me means to me now, just enjoying the experience and making memories that will last me a lifetime, knowing I went to university, I was carefree and enjoyed my little three year gap before I was an adult. 48:05 What about in the future? In the future I just want to know that I achieved my purpose and aim of going to university, which was to get a degree. So getting a good job and using my degree to the most that I can do, not just going into a job because I need a job, but making sure it’s relevant to what I’ve been studying for the last three years and having a good career that I can say, well yeah this was worth going to uni for. 48:48 NAME: Sophie Johnson AGE: 18 OCCUPATION: Student at Kingston University Kingston TP04 02.46 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Well obviously I’m here to get a degree and then hopefully get into work afterwards but also its about like the people you meet here like the people I have met so far I will be friends with for a very long time so it’s about the people you meet and the circles you get into rather than, I mean, obviously everyone is here to work at some point but its also about the environment you are in and the social society that you interact with. 03.23 So what do you hope for the future like a dream job? Well I don’t really have a dream job. I am just sort of…I know what I want to do but there are a lot of boundaries that will prevent me from doing it so I am just there hoping that in the three years something will open up and or I get an idea of what I want to do. 03.47 NAME: Jesseny Kiera Mitchell AGE: 19 OCCUPATION: Student Kingston TP04 14.13


What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Being a student now means having fun but also learning, and being a student in the future I guess to me is putting me instead for what I want to do for the rest of my life and giving me the opportunities to do that. 14.39 Tell me a bit more about how this degree will help you? Well because I’m doing drama and it’s practical and theory, it’s pretty new instead for if you want to teach drama academically, or whether you want to go on to be on stage. It is just preparing you for everything that you’re doing in life isn’t it. It’s not just learning to act, prancing around like a tree. It’s putting you instead for things in later life, you don’t have to be an actor to do drama, you can be a lawyer or anything. It’s useful. 15:16 NAME: Becky AGE: 19 OCCUPATION: student Kingston TP04 25.24 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Means I’m taking the next step to getting the job I want and doing well, I think if I hadn’t come to uni, I would have felt... I don’t know. You meet new people, you feel like you’re learning more, growing older and things and learning new stuff that you need for growing older. Even just living here on my own, it’s helping me look after myself, cook for myself, make it to my own lessons without being woken up by my mum, it’s your own independent kind of learning. 26.20 NAME: Katie AGE: 20 OCCUPATION: Student Kingston TP04 34.04 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Getting a good degree and getting a good job and being able to provide financially for yourself, I think that’s what being a student means for me. Just getting an education, getting on to that next chapter in your life, developing as a person. It’s not really important; I think it depends on the person. It’s important to my family to go to University but for me as a person being a student, it’s up to you, it’s more of a preference really. 34.50 NAME: Sahid


AGE:32 OCCUPATION: student doing MA fashion Kingston TP04 44.50 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Well I don’t take this as a student anymore; this course is not about being student. It’s a conceptual course and we have to have some sort of professional background to do something in a class which helps in a class, so I don’t think this is a particular student environment anymore. Making links within the industry I think that’s a big one. 45.36 NAME: Tom Ross AGE: 20 OCCUPATION: student Kingston TP04 55.09 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Main reason I’m a student is because I enjoy learning not for the job, I would like to get a job from my degree but mainly it’s because I like to learn, and I like this general environment of Uni and being surrounded by people who also want to learn. That’s how I feel about it now, don’t know how I’ll feel about it later, probably depends on what I get. 55.15 Name: Charlie Adams Age: 19 Occupation: Student Kingston TP05 0:07:22 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? At the moment, not that much, I don’t really like it that much here, to be honest so but yeah it’s just a way of carrying on education I guess. 0:07:45 Name: Mayya Shumilina Age: 21 Occupation: International Student Kingston TP05 0:27:02 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? To get my knowledge to get my education, my degree. 0:27:13


Name: Sanjay Solanki Age: 18 Occupation: Student at Kingston University Kingston TP05 0:38:27 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Being a student just prepares me for the adult, like, mature lifestyle, so I’m just at the bottom right now so I got to work my way up so yeah, its a starting point for me. 0:38:40 Name: Jo Cowens Age: 21 Occupation: Graduate/Personal Trainer Kingston TP05 0:50:48 What does - did , being a student mean to back then – now and in the future? Well to be, I didn’t really enjoy my course but I enjoyed the student life. Degree doesn’t seem to get you far anymore, but I think part of it’s the experience of living on your own and coming away from home. So it was a good learning experience, but in terms of the qualification, I’m not doing it, not for me. 0:51:16 Name: Amy Mills Age: 19 Occupation: Student Kingston TP06 4:55 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Well getting a degree I think is quite important and educating yourself. And also it’s about getting your own independence, because I lived at home and in quite a tight family, that I didn’t feel that independent, so that’s why I’ve moved away. And then also for the future I think it’s important when getting a job to like have a degree, but often now a lot of people these days, the degree doesn’t relate to the job they get, so you could say it’s not important. But I think because I’m doing a photography degree, it’s quite important for my career later in life to know how to do photography. 5:49 Name: Rowena Hornshaw Age: 31 Occupation: Mature Student Kingston TP06


11:13 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Now, it means it’s giving me the opportunity to change my career direction and to study something that I want, that I’m interested in. And hopefully it will lead to a new career direction. 11:32 Name: Hannah Robinson Age: 20 Occupation: Student Kingston TP06 16:06 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Being a student, I’ve got more experience out of it. At the end of the day, I want a good degree, but I’m not too concerned about what grade I come out with because I’ve had the most amazing experience. It’s just a learning curve I guess, for the future. I’ve learnt a lot. 16:25 Name: Ed Burn Age: 22 Occupation: Student Kingston TP06 28:18 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? What for me being a student now is learning the tools and the trades and the different ideas that I’ll need for my professional working life. And as for the future, well for me personally as a student, yeah I’d say reiterating that point you know, gaining those tools and having a good education to go out into the working world and be prepared for it. I mean obviously there’s a learning curve with wherever you go but being a lot more prepared in an academic sense and in a professional sense as well, you know, knowing how to speak with a client, how to set up a business meeting, as well as like having the professional tools and the academic tools to complete a task as well, so… 29:17 Name: Wahida Quadi Age: 21 Occupation: Student Kingston TP06 41:14 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? It’s conditioning a way in my life, so basically what I’m doing now, kind of relates to what I want to do in the future, so yeah that’s it.


41:31 What about the social aspect of it? I don’t go out so much so, that doesn’t really affect my future that much. I mean it’s fun and that, but… 41:44 Name: Militta Age: 23 Occupation: Student Kingston TP06 54: 17 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? It means that I can study in something that I enjoy and I know I can take further and be successful. 54:31 NAME: Hannah Wilson AGE: 21 OCCUPATION: Student Kingston TP07 00.04.01 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Well I guess for me now it means I can get my degree and in the future get a good job. 00.04.17 NAME: Benjamin AGE: 20 OCCUPATION: Student Kingston TP07 00.19.67 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? I think being a student is, to be honest, it just feels like paying a lot of money for something that I don’t think really teaches you anything in particular. I think a lot of people I study with...I feel don’t really, I feel don’t take the course seriously and I feel they… even if they don’t take the course seriously I think it’s almost sort of...I don’t understand why most of us are at University and it’s an expensive endeavour. I feel that a lot of us don’t care if we are here or not but there is a lack of alternative and this is an age, you’re at an age when you go to University where you’re not quite ready to jump


into work so this is the perfect alternative. I quite like the polytechnics idea that they used to have in the ‘60s when people can learn skills that aren’t completely useless. 00.20.52 What about for the future? Personally, I don’t want to do much...I think a degree will help me to some extent but I think I can do a lot better outside the degree if that makes sense. For the future I think it will be a lot better if less people go to University because I think it’s a bit of a glorified day care service perhaps to some extent. 00.21.31 Name: Hannah George Age: 21 Occupation: Student Nottingham TP08 0:03:31 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Being a student now is obviously great fun like I’ve met lots of new people and having a really good time but in the future it’s obviously going to help me get a job so this time next year I’m going to be looking for one so kind of making the most of my last student year now. 0:03:54 Name: Kirsty Marriat Age: 21 Occupation: Student Nottingham TP08 00:17:29 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? I think it’s a positive thing, obviously the more students the better, [...] I encourage it and hopefully obviously people be, have good degrees by the end of it and they’ll be more I don’t know, high end, what’s the word, academic people. I think it would be great. 0:17:55 Name: Seyi Agboola Age: 19 Occupation: Student Nottingham TP08 0:28:25 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? It just means that I’ve got good career prospects really. That I’ve got to get a job in the future, you know that’s what it’s all about. If I don’t get a job after this then you know, its just been a lot of clubbing and not a lot of [...] obviously I ain’t put the work in but


I’m thinking about the future, I’m applying for placements at the moment so I’m really career driven at the moment be honest with you I’m in my second year so I’m taking it a bit more serious so I’m forward thinking you know. 0:28:59 Name: Laura Van Beers Age: 24 Occupation: Student Nottingham TP08 0:34:26 What did being a student mean to you – and in the future? Think there’s something like 50% of people in the, people my age in the UK that went to university so it sort of sets us apart from the crowd a little bit and considering everyone’s struggling to find a job, at least a degree’s going to enable us to get a better job, better pay. 0:34:55 Name: Joe Wild / Ben Jackson Age: 20 / 20 Occupation: Student Nottingham TP08 0:53:07 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Ben: Now it just means extending my education and giving myself a better starting point in life later and the opportunity to go and even do a Masters course in time just having that much more to help with getting a job later in life really. Joe: I think it teaches you a lot of life experiences so I think you become I think a more, not even educated, just more sociable and more kind of [...] sociable I think is the right word [laughter] so like it just kind of makes you a bit more likeable and so when you go for interviews and stuff not only do you have your degree but you have like- Ben: People skills. Joe: Yeah, people skills is the word I’m looking for, phrase. NAME: Kidd Waya OCCUPATION: Student – Business Economics Nottingham TP09 00.09.51 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? Being a student, I love being a student; you meet lots of people, very social. For me it means you know finding new contacts, meeting new people, enjoy the student life with all the discounts and all these kinds of things. Enjoying a new part of the city I’ve never


been to before. Independence, obviously coming from secondary school you have your mum or your father looking after you your whole life. When you go to become a student, more independent it makes you a stronger person and you realise the qualities you have that you can use in the real world. 00.10.37 NAME: Devinderdeep AGE: 22 OCCUPATION: Student Nottingham TP09 00.15.28 What does being a student mean to you – now and in the future? It’s a life experience really so at least when I’m older I can always look back and be like I experienced that, the social aspect of it and not just the education, and I’ve made lifelong friends out of it too. 00.15.47 What about the future? Well it will definitely give me the knowledge and the benefits of moving forward so it will probably, well I would like to think it will, help me get a job. 00.16.00

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INTERNAL STUDENTS – ‘What does being a student mean to you · INTERNAL!STUDENTS!–!‘What!does!being!a!student ... it’s not so much about the studying it ... Degree is a chance