With insights from students, lecturers, and industry-experienced academics, we explore how Loughborough brings learning to life. From placement years and internships to global opportunities such as partnerships with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), discover how the university helps students build skills that really count in today's job market
Participants
- Emily Slade - podcast producer and host, Prospects
- Professor Jan Godsell - dean of Loughborough Business School
- Professor Ken Lee - professor in accounting and director of postgraduate taught programmes
- Dr Albert Attom - human resource management and organisational behaviour
- Professor Crispin Coombs - associate dean for research and innovation and professor of information systems
- Sajna - MBA student
- Sophie - second-year student
Transcript
Professor Ken Lee: In an environment where we've got technological change with AI, et cetera, coming along, it's a constant challenge to make sure that we are preparing them for the careers that they're going to actually experience rather than something which is out of date.
Welcome to Future You, the students and careers advice podcast brought to you by Prospects.
Professor Jan Godsell: I'm Jan Godsell, I'm dean of Loughborough Business School and I'm also the director of our new partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is called UK Scale, which is our supply chain and logistics excellence centre.
Sophie: My name's Sophie and I'm a second-year international business student.
Emily Slade: Can you introduce the business school? Why does it stand out against other universities?
Professor Jan Godsell: Loughborough Business School has actually only existed for about the last three years. Prior to that, we were a School of Business and Economics, but we've been teaching management since 1971, so for over 50 years. And what really makes Loughborough a difference is that for over 30 years, we used to have a placement as a mandatory part of our offering. And that's because what we've always been really good at and recognised is that it's not just about the theory that you learn. What you need to be able to do is turn that theory into practice and at the end of the day, enable our graduates to have really amazing jobs. And that's what we're really good at. And more to the point, we do it in a really cool way because we're very collegiate. One of the things that struck me when I came to work at Loughborough is the caring nature of the staff and they're invested in the success of our students. I think it's a spillover from the sporting ethos and whilst you don't necessarily need to be in a sports team, there's something about that camaraderie through sport that spills over. And all of this is encapsulated in our our strategy, Progress with Purpose, where we aim to be the first choice business school for purpose-driven people and organisations.
Emily Slade: Yeah, fantastic. So did you always know you wanted to study business?
Sophie: Yes, I was stuck between doing business with a language and then business just on its own, but I've always known I wanted to do international business since I was like year 11. And when the first university I looked at and the first course was actually international business at Loughborough. And when I did languages at A-level, I was pretty sure I wanted to do languages as well. So then seeing that I could do it as a module at Loughborough University literally was what made me want to do international business because I feel like I can still do what I like to do on the side. But my main degree is international business.
Emily Slade: Yeah, amazing. So why did you come down on Loughborough? Why did you choose Loughborough?
Sophie: I chose it because it's an on-campus university I really like, it's a really nice community. I feel so safe here, and also it's Loughborough campus is such a nice community and I like that. you can literally, everything's walkable. So my first year when I stayed in halls, like I was like 10 minutes away from the gym, the library and I was really productive and then second year I'm in a house and you're still really close to everything. And I really like that I live near like food shops, I can just do my own food shop and I get my independence by being off campus as well.
Emily Slade: Absolutely. Was there ever a thought to - do you sort of come from nearby? Could you have lived at home?
Sophie: Yeah, I do. I live really close to home, but I was up until I got my offer except to live, but I was actually going to live at home. And then I decided I just want to live in halls of first general. I literally enjoyed it so much. It was like the best experience. And I feel like when you're in halls, you do make a lot of friends. You won't miss out if you lived at home because you get assigned to a hall. But like, I got so much independence, I learnt so much and I feel like living in a messy uni house and flats made me more tolerant. And I've gained so much life skills from going to university. Even though I'm not that far away from home, I do feel like I've still got my own separate life from university.
Emily Slade: Yeah, 100%. But you're not a sports student, you're not doing any sports.
Sophie: No, but there's a lot of opportunities to do social sports and I was a bit worried when I came to Loughborough that there'd be like a lot of sporty people and you'd feel a bit left out. But there's so many opportunities to do social sports as well as sports for AU. For example, like doing social sports and like netball for your hall. So I did a bit of that and first year I played for my hall and like trained with my whole team. That was really fun. And I feel like I like gained a lot from doing that, just like confidence and stuff and like working with, like playing with new people and making new friends as well as like you can hire at tennis courts, badminton courts, paddle courts. And that's like me and my house do that like every week. I love to do that. And I feel like you get a lot of, and also you can go to the gym. There's loads of gyms around Loughborough. And you don't have to be super like go to the gym every day to go to the, like to be, you don't feel pressurised in the gym. You don't like feel like, because I was a bit worried that like Loughborough would be really judgy because they're obviously really like sporty, but it's not like that at all. Yeah.
Emily Slade: Oh, amazing. So we've mentioned progress with purpose. Can you expand on that? What is that?
Professor Jan Godsell: Yeah, so there are thousands of business schools across the world. And when we were looking at whether or not we should have remained as the School of Business and Economics or become a business school, we started to look at what made us distinctive. And as I mentioned before, there's this thing about collegiality. We really do have staff that seem to care. We're really good at turning theory into practice. But actually, we also have a really good balance of disciplines such as economics, accountants and finance, as well as the standard sort of business disciplines. But if we look at the challenges that the world is facing, business can often be seen as a driver of economic growth. But at the moment, that growth is causing us to cross our planetary boundaries and is also leading to greater and greater societal inequities. Loughborough has been a signatory of the Principles of Responsible Management Education since 2016. Over the last two years we've actually been PRME champions. So that sort of idea of responsible business practice is also at our core. And so as we started to think about what could make us distinctive, because fundamentally business schools teach pretty much the same stuff, we really thought, actually, there must be a way of doing business that enables us to do that in a way that's better for the environment and can actually help to ideally reduce those societal inequities, both within countries and between countries. And so in line with people like Kate Raworth or Daniel Susskind, that perhaps get us to think about new models of growth, we wanted to align with that. And so Progress with Purpose is all about us both working with organisations that are potentially seeking to have a purpose beyond just profit, but it's also at a more individual level, it's about our colleagues, our staff achieving their individual purpose and as importantly, I wouldn't say more importantly because our staff and students are equally important, but really ensuring that our students achieve their own personal purpose and go on to develop the careers that they really set out to do.
Emily Slade: Speaking of careers, employability is obviously a huge factor, it's a huge worry. How does Loughborough prepare their students for their future employability?
Professor Jan Godsell: So as I mentioned previously, placement has been a critical part of how we've turned theory into practice and prepared our students for the outside world. However, it's not just been a placement; you could also do study abroad, and you can do a combination of placement and study abroad. But actually skills development has always been really embedded into our curriculum. It's a major part of the first and second years to really make sure that our students have all of those skills that can both help them get those placements and to get those opportunities. And we're also seeing students move away from necessarily a formal one-year-long placement, thinking about internships across the summers. And I think what we will ensure is that we're always at the forefront of developing those approaches to employability that give students the skills that they need. So for instance, a more recent investment we've made is in Data Camp. So Data Camp is an online platform that gamifies the development of digital skills. And so that's open to all of our students and all of our staff. and they can essentially make sure that they're future ready with all of the digital skills that they need. They get a lot of digital credentials and our students can use that to help them support their assignments, just to support self-study. But what we're seeing increasingly is our students that are in placement and they're perhaps being asked to use Agentic AI in different ways to help analyse data, then those sorts of tools really come into their own.
Emily Slade: Absolutely. Can you tell us a bit about the support systems that are available from the university?
Sophie: Yes, so when you get your place at Loughborough, you'll be assigned to a tutor and so you see your tutor like twice to three times a year and you build like a really close relationship with them. I really enjoy going to see my tutor and if you like struggle with anxiety or exam worries or just feeling overwhelmed with pressure because I for example in first year in the first semester I found I was finding that I was trying really hard but I was seeing like no good results from my like work and I was speaking to my tutor about it and like we came up with some new plans and like it really helped me to like adapt from A-levels to degree because it's completely different. It's not like the content's completely different. The way you revise, you have to like relearn your revision techniques. So I found that really useful. But then also with exams, I've found exam like period like really stressful, exam season really stressful. And I did go see the student services like wellbeing team. And because in my past school I had like smaller room, like time adjustments and extra time, like rest breaks and stuff. So I was worried I wasn't going to be able to get that experience, that help when I come to Loughborough. But literally, I'd say they were more helpful. They were so nice. They'd check in on me during the week. The invisionators were so nice. They gave me literally all the arrangements. They gave me more than I literally asked for. And now I genuinely don't find exam season as stressful as I used to because of the extra support. Like you do not feel like pressure that you do during A-levels and that made such a difference to me because I wasn't going to go to the university because of exams. I really don't like exams. And when if you have something, a situation happen or an unexpected event and obviously it might affect your university, they're so helpful and they will, you can apply for midst and circumstances, you'll never like, If something's happening, for example, with anxiety and stuff, you will get that extra support that you want and need. You don't feel like a number at Loverborough, like you do have a really close relationship and you can build really close relationships with the Loverborough staff.
Emily Slade: Yeah, that's brilliant. So do you have any additional roles alongside your studies?
Sophie: So I do a lot of the help out with the business school like ambassadors. Wait, I'm like a business school ambassador. So I help out with like the open days, the offer holder days, because I really enjoy like speaking to students and giving them like advice and like talking about experience because obviously when you come to Loughborough you want to be able to have as well as like a lecturer's like advice that you also want to speak to a student. So I really enjoy like encouraging students to come to Loughborough.
Emily Slade: Why is now an exciting time to join Loughborough Business School?
Professor Jan Godsell: So, now is a fantastic time to join Loughborough Business School, because our entire undergraduate and postgraduate portfolios have been refreshed to have progress with purpose right at their core. We have... a principles of responsible management education module that students do in their first year. It's embedded right the way through their modules. And then at the end of the first and second years, we have specific capstone projects around CSR, corporate social responsibility and ESG.
Emily Slade: You mentioned a partnership with MIT. Can you expand on that a bit more?
Professor Jan Godsell: Yeah, so the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, currently the number one university in the world, has had an expertise in supply chain through their Supply Chain and Logistics Excellence Network. To date, they've had centres obviously in the mothership in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Lingbo in China, and in Zaragoza in Spain. and we have joined that network. So we are now the UK node in the global scale network. Why that's particularly exciting, so we host an MSc in supply chain where our students on that program get to go to MIT in January each year. for Scale Connect. It gives them the opportunity to meet with all of the other Scale students from around the world and also to present their initial ideas around their capstone projects. And as a result, they get a diploma from MIT but also become affiliate alumni. So it is a wonderful opportunity to make sure at this time when the world perhaps needs a slightly different way of looking at our supply chains to make them more resilient and sustainable and still be productive. It's a really, really fantastic way to make sure that our students are at the real leading edge of practice.
Emily Slade: Yeah, fantastic. Anyone thinking about applying to Loughborough, what advice would you give them?
Sophie: The advice I'd give to prospective students is to take all the opportunities offered, for example, like go to the offer holder days, and when you get your place, like come look at Loughborough because it's such a nice community and you get so many opportunities to make new friends, do fun activities, especially in like freshers weeks, I would take all the opportunities. And if you do have like a... offer to go to Loughborough, just like if you really want to go to Loughborough, just work really hard because it's really motivating to get when you get the greatest thing, you get the offer. Which hall were you in? I was in Royce.
Professor Jan Godsell: And did you enjoy it?
Sophie: Yeah, when I first found out I was in Royce, I wasn't too happy because it was a shared bathroom. Yeah, shared bathrooms. It was catered and I didn't want that, but I literally loved it so much. I would stay in Royce again. It was so much fun. And halls really don't matter. It's more about location and who you're sharing with.
Emily Slade: You can get used to a shared bathroom pretty quickly.
Sophie: Yeah, it was. They literally cleaned them like every day, every other day. It was so clean and I never felt like gross or anything.
Professor Jan Godsell: I think they're getting used to a shared bathroom. My son, he was really fussy about his wall.
Sophie: Right, I made Mum like go to the halls.
Professor Jan Godsell: That might be worth just saying, don't get put off if you don't get your hall of choice, because I'd say that's one of the biggest learnings. You think it's like the end of the world?
Sophie: I was going to take a gap here, not joking. He's going to do the same.
Professor Jan Godsell: It's like ridiculous. It's like.
Sophie: Were you really? Oh my God. I was like, I want to meet Gloria Parsons, take me on, put me on a gap year. Yeah, I was like, I'd rather just work for a year and then just be in the hall I like because it's going to make me miserable.
Professor Jan Godsell: What would you say to people that said that now?
Sophie: I literally, I'm just so glad I was put in Royce because like being, like the location was like the best location ever. Like being so close to the gym and the library was so productive.
Emily Slade: So tell us a bit about your offer because your predicted grades were different to your entry grades.
Sophie: Yes, you shouldn't let it put you off because if you do work really hard, you can get the grades you need to get into. to university. For example, some teachers in my schools were a bit unsupportive, like because my grades were obviously different and lower. But you shouldn't let that put you off because if you do work really hard, you can get the grades you want to get into the front. And like when you get the like golden ticket when you apply, when you get accepted, it's so cute.
Emily Slade: What do you mean? You get like a golden ticket.
Sophie: Yes, so when you get, if you get your offer on results day, like the next day you get like a golden ticket, it's so cute.
Emily Slade: Oh my God, that's so cute. I'm going to need a picture of that. that and I need to put it on screen.
Sophie: I already do have a picture.
Emily Slade
Amazing. Well, thank you both so much for your time today.
Sophie: Thank you.
Professor Jan Godsell: Thank you. And I thank you. You're amazing.
Professor Ken Lee: So my name is Ken. I'm a professor here at the business school in the Accounting Finance Group, but also the director of studies for postgraduate. programmes at the business school.
Sajna:So my name is Sajna. So I'm a postgraduate MBA student here at the Loughborough Business School. So I've been working in international education for over a decade before I stepped into this journey. So I decided that I want to take a shift in my career and give myself ready for the professional world. So yeah. Here I am.
Emily Slade: Why did you choose Loughborough? What attracted you to the MBA here?
Sajna: To start with, Loughborough is a AAA accredited business school, so I wanted to do an MBA from a AAA accredited business school and the community or the environment here in the campus. So, I've been to UK before. I've been to at least 10 or 10 plus universities. I've visited a lot of universities here. And I think Loughborough stood out most to me because the campus is so lively. To be in a campus where the students are so active and to study in a campus like that with an outstanding facilities and a triple accredited business school. And the program, I mean, the program is also curated in such a way that you get that global exposure. There is a lot of value addition, a lot of things, global network, our global network of alumni, there are a lot of talks, a lot of career support that's embedded into the program. So that basically prompted me to choose Loughborough.
Emily Slade: How do you ensure that students are prepared for future careers?
Professor Ken Lee: Really great question. In an environment where we've got technological change with AI, et cetera, coming along, it's a constant challenge to make sure that we are preparing them for the careers that they're going to actually experience rather than something which is out of date. So a few things that go on outside of the core content. As I mentioned before, the core content that we have designed and embedded in the programme reflects where we think the career challenges of the future will be. But we don't just stop at that. Most of our programmes will have professional skills embedded in it in whatever way is appropriate for that discipline. But then we've got the extracurricular. career support. So we have an excellent careers function, so specialist careers advisors, and they are really amazing. But also as faculty, I think what we want to do is give that discipline-specific career support. So is that guest speakers? Is it talks? Is it preparing students for technical interviews, assessment centres? We do all of that, including me personally, but I know lots of the faculty faculty do. And in addition, talking to students about their careers and what the future might look like in recognition of the fact that none of us know ultimately how things like AI will play out, but having those debates and discussions to give students more confidence about what are the different scenarios that might play out. So it's very much front and centre of what we offer. And I don't know if you have any thoughts on your experience of that.
Sajna: Yeah, so we had this professional development sessions on every Wednesdays. And even in the classrooms, the debate and discussions over AI are the real world aspects. So it's not like just the lectures that happens here. So there are group discussions, there are debates, and working on projects inside the classroom where we debate over things like which is happening right now in the industry. So which equips us and gives us that confidence, like Professor Ken said, like gives us that confidence that we can face the real world while AI is prominent and AI is taking over, what difference does it make for us to be in that real world as well? So it's kind of, it's amazing the kind of curriculum that we have here. It's constantly updating, I would say. Like it's updating as the industry updates, which is amazing that we get to experience that real world situations in the classroom, which just kind of equips us for the real world better.
Professor Ken Lee: And what I would say is it's a university. So we need to accept and we need to celebrate the fact that we are going to cover theory. We are going to cover frameworks. We want to give you knowledge that's not just going to be out of date because it's these frameworks and these theories are persistent and they last many, many years. And actually just following on from that, so one of the things to mention is many of the faculty have worked in industry, as well as being very well qualified academically. And indeed, we love sharing that knowledge. I presented to the MBA class on careers in banking and finance, which is my particular area. And we had a fantastic session, kind of talking about as an MBA student, how can you think about making progress in a career in finance? And we do a similar thing for our postgraduate MSc students as well.
Emily Slade: Amazing, fantastic. So why should students come to Loughborough.
Professor Ken Lee: I mean, the first thing I think is always worth saying is that there are many, many good universities. So when I choose the things I'm going to mention now, I'm trying to pick areas where I think we are useful for discriminating Loughborough's offer from other universities, which will give you a perfectly good experience as well. So I think in terms of Loughborough, one of the starting points is for our postgraduate students. We are a small community. So if you want to join a community where it is not enormous class sizes, it is a postgraduate community, you will make friends, you will get to know people, you will get to know faculty. We celebrate that. We don't want to be a massive postgraduate community, we're very happy being right-sized in that way. So that idea of a friendly, small community is very important. Secondly, this idea of applied knowledge. It's in our ethos from undergraduate right up to postgraduate and beyond in our offering. We're always really thinking about the end point in terms of industry, in terms of opportunities for employment. And we spend a lot of time helping our students think about their careers, planning them, and really supporting them in those efforts. And I think the third thing is trying to ensure we give you some real-world experience. I mean, a postgraduate degree, that's not easy because you're not here for that long. So we've now inbuilt kind of really practical work experience projects in all of our offerings. And we We don't only want to offer those, we want to make sure they are really excellent offerings, including all the surrounding support that students are given, as well as the actual project itself. So there's some of the things. I could mention other things like really lovely faculty and stuff, but I shall resist that. But ultimately, I think there's some of the key points. And I haven't even mentioned the campus, which of course I could have, but I'll leave that to another question.
Emily Slade: Absolutely. Have you undertaken any of the work experience?
Sajna: Not yet. We have the consulting project upcoming, so that would be ideally in June, July. We would start working on that from June, July. So that's one amazing part of the MBA program where we get to tackle the real world solutions for a business organisation. So that's something which is quite admirable embedded into the MBA program that I'm on a one year pathway. So in that one year, I get to do a lot of things along with working on a real world industry problem, which is amazing. And for the two year pathway students, Yes, there is an internship embedded as part of the program, which also helps them to get the real-world experience while graduating itself. Yeah.
Emily Slade: Are you sort of one big community of sort of postgrads? Do you integrate yourself with... other year groups.
Sajna: I've been on one student international student experience trip. Yeah, I get to see some of them. And during the Christmas celebration, I guess, yeah, we get to interact with a lot of other year groups as well.
Emily Slade: Oh, that's brilliant. So is the social life very good?
Sajna: Yes, the social life is really good. The international student experience team as well, they organise a lot of events. So I get to experience only one until now. But they do organise a lot of events, which is really good for the international students to experience the campus. get along with our international students, get to know the place, which is amazing, I think.
Emily Slade: So the Industry Experience Project, can you tell us a bit about that?
Professor Ken Lee: Yeah, of course. The genesis of this was when we were looking at postgraduate programmes across the business school and we were thinking about how can we embed some work experience into these programmes in an efficient way that reflects the fact that students want to get some experience, but the fact is that we're under quite a compressed time because you have to finish your degree within the year. So we developed an industry experience project offering, and there's various aspects to it. So one is that we run a full one-day consulting conference to get our students ready for the projects. So that's everything from what frameworks might you use, how can you present well in front of a company, how do you go into organise your team who's working on the project. We've got consultants come in and say, this is how you should deal with a consulting challenge. So really trying to get students into mini consultants, further industry experience project ahead of going out there. But all the time, respecting the idea that it's within a discipline. So we've got the accounting and finance project, we've got the international business, et cetera, whatever subject you are studying. And the ultimate objective is to have students work with a UK company on a live project, a real problem that they are facing. And I hope that students are as excited as we are about that. And it'll be interesting if we are.
Sajna: We definitely are. So we have attended two or three sessions for the industry experience project. One was led by Professor Ken itself. So we get to know that, we will get to know about the projects, the real world, the companies and different disciplines like Professor Ken said, like the international business or strategy or different different projects. And we get to pitch for them as well, which is good. So we can pick the project that we want to choose and pitch for them. And we have a consulting conference day in June, supposedly. to happen in June, where we get to learn more about it and start working on the real world project. So I think that's amazing.
Professor Ken Lee: And the feedback we got last year, one of the most exciting things we got, feedback from companies saying how impressed they were with the Loughborough students working on these projects. And of course, we got great feedback from our students in the past that they really enjoyed the experience. But it makes us very proud to think that companies are listening to our students' thoughts and being really impressed by them. That gives us a lot of reassurance that we're doing something right, to say the least.
Emily Slade: Yeah, absolutely. So you've worked with organisations such as Barclays. How has your industry experience helped you and impacted the way that you prepare and teach students?
Professor Ken Lee: I think it's particularly pertinent because It allows you, drawing on that work experience, allows you to bring real case studies, but also anecdotes into the classroom. And students love stories. They love stories where they can see what you're teaching is relevant to the real world and you can give examples of where it was applied. So one aspect is in my discipline teaching, the idea that I can draw on that real world experience. And it does allow you to have a lot of credibility with students and create a kind of nice energetic atmosphere. But I think the second thing that I would draw on from that experience is preparing people for careers and helping prepare students from all disciplines in careers and sharing with them my career in industry, what lessons I learned that I wish I'd known at the earlier part of my career that I can help students fill in those gaps. And so for example, I did a talk for the MBA students and really most of that was drawn on my work experience and trying to help them think about their careers and learning from the things I did well and the things where I didn't do so well, where I made mistakes. And hopefully that was helpful.
Sajna: Yes, that was absolutely helpful. We all enjoyed it.
Professor Ken Lee: You did have to say that nonetheless.
Sajna: So the thing is, we are blessed with faculties like that, who have been in the industry for quite long and then became an academy, then came into the academics. So we get to, what they teach in the classroom is connected with the real world problem or the real world experience, the way they share the problem. The way they teach is connected with the real world experience that they had. So that is kind of something that we can take, so we can connect with that much better than than just taking an academic or just learning something by textbook, but rather they teach us in a way that it's connected with what they experienced, which is amazing. And Professor Ken, we only had one session from him and he literally rocked it. Amazing.
Professor Ken Lee: That's very nice of you to say. And I kind of related to that is, helping students with cover letters and CVs and interview practice and assessment centres. I ran many of those when I was in banking. And it's really exciting to help people at the early stages of their career, or mid-career if they're MBA students, to make that progress because there's so many challenges for young people out there and it's beholden on people who have experience to support them and to help them in any way we can, particularly at a friendly, small community like we have at Loughborough.
Sajna: Yeah, so as part of the MPA, we get the professional development is embedded in our course, which is nice because we don't have to go behind the career networks team or get that experience. Rather, it's embedded as part of the module itself, the professional development. So every Wednesday we have that professional development session. So either it will be a talk from the industry leaders, like Professor Ken or someone from outside of the university. There are a lot of, we had one session where the academic or the career networks team came in and spoke about the services that they offer. And every other week, one week was about the assessments, how the assessments takes place at the workplace. So it's kind of equipped us, I mean, from the start of the programme, by the time the programme ends, so we get equipped with all these professional aspects and develop us into ready for the real world.
Emily Slade: For any prospective students, for anyone that's never been here, what is it like stepping onto campus for the first time? What's the experience at Loughborough like?
Sajna: So I'll tell you about when I first arrived in Loughborough. So I arrived late, in fact, I got my visa late, so I was late to start my Studies here, so I arrived two weeks late, so I've been to London, I've been to Nottingham, I've been to some of the other cities in the UK earlier, so it was my first time in the Loughborough, so the town is pretty quiet, but as soon as I stepped inside the university... It was different. So it was so lively. Someone is always running around the campus. There are a lot of activities. The campus is so lively. So someone who wants to experience that, it's an amazing place to be. And the business school, the support that I received, even though I arrived late, so the support I received from the business school was amazing. So I could easily integrate into the program, though I arrived now or two weeks late. So maybe in a week's time, I didn't even realise that I arrived late. So the support that I got from here was amazing. So, and the business school, there are a lot of support that the MBA students especially get, I guess. I'm not sure about the other groups of other MSc programmes, but MBA students are... I would say we're pampered. We get free coffee, we get free biscuits.
Emily Slade: Amazing.
Sajna: That's all you need. And it happens, all the classes happens right here in the business school. So I met one MSc finance student, I guess, one day, and they were like, why does MBA students only get to sit in the business school all the time? So all our classes are in the business school itself. So which is, I guess, It's like, everything is around. We have access to everything. So we have amazing faculties, amazing team members to support us for anything that we need with. And yeah, that support is amazing, I would say.
Professor Ken Lee: It's interesting. Although I didn't arrive as a student when I arrived here to do my job interview, but then when I joined, and I was previously at a city-based university. So very different vibe, very different atmosphere. And one of the things I really notice, I tend to get in very early. And if you get in at 8 o'clock in the morning, the rugby pitches are full of people training, the hockey pitches, et cetera. And it gives this buzz and energy and vibe to the whole place, which is very, very unique. And it is like its own small town of itself because it's got everything, restaurants and it's got medical support and it's got whatever you want. And it's an amazing place. There's nothing I love more than I need 1/2 hour away from work, just walk the campus. It's fantastic. So I really enjoy that aspect of working here. And I think students, I can tell, They really enjoy it too.
Emily Slade: Absolutely. You spoke off camera before about stumbling upon a hockey match.
Professor Ken Lee: Yes. It was a really lovely, warm March evening. Okay, that's quite unusual. I'm not going to missell the weather in Loughborough. And we were doing a walking meeting, taking advantage of the late evening sun. And we could hear a lot of noise in the distance and we walked towards it and there was a hockey match happening. It was Loughborough against a neighbour, Nottingham. And there were thousands of people, students, at this match. There was an incredible atmosphere. It was a really, really exciting game. And I think that's a very unique thing. I can't imagine any other UK university really where you'd come across that. And I think for students who are going to be on campus or living nearby, you'll get to experience that a lot. And that is a very unique and energising experience to have.
Emily Slade: And it's gorgeous. I walked onto the campus for the first time today and there's buildings from what I learned earlier to be from 1909 with a big fountain in the middle. It's just really lovely.
Professor Ken Lee: That's true. We're lucky to be here.
Sajna: Yes, we are.
Emily Slade: Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for your time today.
Dr Albert Attom: Pleasure. My name is Albert Atom. I'm a university teacher and also an impact focused researcher in the business school. So my research predominantly focuses on how you can use academic knowledge to have real world impact. So really it sits at the intersection between research, policy and outcome. So a lot of what I do focuses on, okay then how do we make sure that the research output leads to real world changes in societies. And I do this on an international level. So these are sort of local communities, organizations, and also working with governments and international organizations to deliver impact.
Professor Crispin Coombs: Yep, so I'm Crispin Coombs. I'm Professor of Information Systems. at the Business School. I'm also the Associate Dean for Research and Innovation. So in terms of the broader leadership role, it's very much about creating sort of an excellent research environment for our colleagues like Albert to really make a difference to their research. So what we want to do as a school and as a university is translate our research into real world impact, make sure we can affect the lives of people, translate our research into practice. And it aligns very much with the university's sorry, the school's progress with purpose strategy and sort of thinking beyond profit because this is more what we as researchers and as academics are interested in, but I think it resonates more with what society is looking towards and sort of engaging with because there's a recognition that actually we need to be mindful of the planet, we need to be mindful of sort of the implications for people within it, the lived experiences and build it through that. So My enjoyable sort of leadership role as an associate dean is creating that environment so we can flourish in that regard. From my own personal research point of view, I look at the business benefits of artificial intelligence. So again, much like Albert, looking for sort of those translatable impacts into sort of businesses and organisations. That's what I'm interested in.
Emily Slade: Amazing. So looking at those real world impacts and how we're impacting society, can either of you expand on like a recent or something that you've done?
Dr Albert Attom: Yeah, so particularly over the last five years, I would say, I've been doing a lot of work in Africa. So A great example is the project that we did in Ethiopia. I was working with an international NGO called AMREF and also the government. And we were using the outcomes of my research to help unemployed youth to get digital skills training so that they can enter the global gig economy workforce. It was a massive project actually funded by USAID. At its peak, it reached 2 million unemployed youth in Ethiopia. The part of the project that my team was working on was around digital skills and capacity building. So that had an impact directly on about 45,000 youth staff in Ethiopia, training them, helping them build up their sort of the learning materials using the research that I've done. So it was really great to go back and see that somebody's unemployed youth for now. They're no longer unemployed, they've got jobs. one of the key stakeholders was helping the unemployed youth with microfinancing as well. So using the knowledge gained from the research and then applying it in their own businesses, I think was what was really, really a good outcome. And just recently, another project that I've been working on is with Girl Effect. So Girl Effect is another international NGO. This one was in Tanzania. So we used the outcomes of my research and what we did is we trained the leadership team at Girl Effect and they were able to use that knowledge on a current project that they're doing in the northern part of Tanzania called Arusha. They're working with disadvantaged women and helping them with economic training so that they can start businesses in some of these sort of underprivileged communities out there. So One thing I love about doing impact research and having the freedom that we do at Loughborough is you can have a great idea, you can go and deliver it, and then you have the freedom and the capacity to go back and see that indeed it's made a real world difference. Just one that just came to my mind. So the one that I really, really, really impacted on me personally is I was working with some charities in Kenya, in some of the big slums in Nairobi. And they wanted to use my research to train women that had suffered from gender-based violence. So I went into the slums and we did a training for them in like a metal box, essentially. It didn't have electricity. So it's a great thing that I charged my laptop. And they were able to use that training to get micro-financing and to start up little businesses. So there was one woman that we visited and she started selling eggs, boiled eggs. It sounds very small, but she was able to grow that business and send her children to school. Yeah, so we went to visit her at her little store in the slums. She had about two children. I think she was a teenager. And It was just empowering to see that research, the output can change lives and is changing lives. And I think for me, working at Loughborough and being able to have those experiences really does enrich my experience and also the experience of my students. Because I told them these stories. I was like, wow. And I showed them the pictures. They're like, wow, you were there? Yeah, that's cool. You know, and that's something that for me personally is this, you know, what Crispy was talking about, progress with purpose, what we do. So yeah, that's just something I just came on there.
Professor Crispin Coombs: No, it's a great example. It's a really nice. It's all I come from there. I think The other contrast we have, so with some of the work the colleagues do across the school, is that we go from that example and then translate into the types of work that Professor Tom Jackson and Professor Ian Hutchinson are doing around digital decarbonisation. And you relate that to sort of starting on a small business in that case and just setting somebody sort of off subsistence, really. And then We've got other researchers who were looking at sort of the global impact of using technology and what that means for the carbon footprint that we are all generating whenever we do a, get excited by a particular meme or whatever that's taking place that's gone viral around using AI to generate some sort of image. the amount of energy that is used when you put that into and just crazing it. I think, oh, this is a bit of fun. And it's a two-minute, oh, great. I'm post it. Everyone has a laugh. And just like, yeah, that actually used an awful lot of energy just to create that image. And we just don't think about it in that way. So their work is really powerful. And they're working with sort of international policy makers to kind of get that message around. Actually, we need to think about our digital footprint, especially when we're using things like crypto technologies and artificial intelligence because they're becoming normal in our daily lives.
Emily Slade: Yeah, absolutely. So staying with AI, what's the positive side of that? How are we using it to sort of improve lives, tackle global challenges? Let's go down the nice route, not the mean route.
Professor Crispin Coombs: I think it offers huge potential in terms of sort of actually making our lives easier, sort of accelerating progress towards drug discovery. There was a lot of work around, interestingly, during COVID, we had a real pressure on, actually, could we come up with a vaccination, a solution for the sort of the world essentially to get us out of the situation we were in. And there was a real challenge of actually, can we turn to AI? Could we use it? And at that point in time, what was evident was kind of the potential was there in AR and our capabilities. But what we weren't set up for is our data structures, the organization of our data, the cleanliness, because AI lives off data. It requires data to get it moving and so forth. And And it was kind of, we can, but we're not quite there yet. We're not ready. And it kind of illustrates the situation that, heck, we might have something like that again in the future, or there's some sort of a challenging problem. And AI could, you know, accelerate the way we can move towards it. There's an awful lot of debate at the moment around research and innovation, around working where the boundaries are on AI, how we use it in terms of methods, can we trust it? It's challenging because of the sort of, we need the explainability. and the work around that and having that connection. And I think that's one of the big challenges with it, is it because it's very much operating in a black box. And there's very clever researchers in computer science at Loughborough and more broadly, so trying to wrestle with these problems and help with the explainability. But the hope is that it could save us time, we can make things easier. There are sort of simple tasks. We see it just playing around with the likes of ChatGPT and sort of things. there are some tasks that can do extremely well already. There are also real pitfalls with it because you have to double check and really learn around it. So I think one of the aspects that we're starting to get a better handle on, and I think is really important for society more broadly, but especially for students coming into this learning environment, is actually building up your artificial intelligence literacy. So you can really discern what you're looking at. We need to be sort of challenging images that you see. And so you don't, they are designed to get you to react. And so it's having that awareness, having, building the skill sets, I think that starts actually with a very young age, to actually normalize our behavior that we just don't take what we see for granted. We don't assume it's the truth. Because it's so easy to create things that are so accurate there. So it's got huge potential and real, we can really accelerate things, but it's that balance and understanding of quite where its boundaries are. I think we really need to focus on.
Dr Albert Attom: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, from my research, there are two projects that we're actually doing at the moment. So my previous research project on healthcare digitalization, One of the outcomes is we're working with a local company in Africa and we're trying to develop an AI-powered healthcare connectivity app. So one of the findings from the research was how disconnected the healthcare ecosystem is. And so we were thinking about, okay, then how can we develop something that allows healthcare workers and healthcare users to have access to a platform that they can get accurate healthcare information, particularly information in their local environment. And Crispy will know my current impact project on academic skills for students. So that is something that is, you know, we're doing it right now. And that project, just about a month ago, we decided that having an AI in the back end will really enhance the platform. So that platform is providing academic skills for students before they come to university. And what we want to do is we want to use the AI to provide tailored feedback on their academic skills so that they can get individualized insights into where they currently are before they come to university. And I'll give them some leeway to prepare and say, OK, then these are my strengths. These are the areas that I might have to improve on. So prior to coming to university, they already know this. So there's just little ways that we're, I've been trying to use AI very recently. But as Crispin said, you know, it's a relatively new technology. No one really knows where it's going, you know, even though they say they do, but they don't. And I think as a university, we are constantly, well as a department, constantly thinking, How do we leverage this technology for our students? How do we inform them about it? And also, how do we integrate it into the sort of research that we're doing?
Emily Slade: So the project you just mentioned, is that the Ghana-based project?
Dr Albert Attom: I have two Ghana-based projects, actually. So the first one was the healthcare digitalization project. So that was a project that we started about five years ago. And it started off with one case example of a teaching hospital in the northern part of Ghana, where we did research with them. And the issue was, in emerging economies, there's lots of technology, but they're not being utilized effectively. And we wanted to find out what was going on within that context. So through the research, we're able to find out that a lot of healthcare workers and healthcare leaders were scared of using technology because they felt it was going to take their jobs. That was the messaging they'd been hearing from social media. And so we were able to identify that. And then what we then did was to develop capacity building and training for healthcare workers and healthcare users. And we implemented that in the hospital. And then we brought together a multidisciplinary team from all levels of the hospital to develop their first ever healthcare digitalisation policy. I shared it with some colleagues here at Loughborough, they gave us some really good insights and now the hospital has implemented that policy and they're using it. So the feedback we got just before Christmas was they're now doing more training on healthcare digitalisation, which they've never done before. They're now integrating digital technologies that they already had, but they weren't using it. And one of the things that our trainer was able to communicate was how digital technologies can have a massive impact on job quality and care quality. The narrative was it only benefited care quality and it didn't do much for the job quality, but we were able to demonstrate to them that indeed it does. So that was a really great project. And what subsequently happened was that the government of Ghana picked it up, which led to them coming to Loughborough last year for a visit. They signed an MRU with the university. And really, it was in recognition of the impact that we have internationally, and now we're working with them on a subsequent digitalization and academic skills project. So, the first research project led to the current research project that we're doing, and so I think when you have real-world impact. things come out of it, unexpected things. When I started that project, I didn't know ministers would be coming to visit Loughborough, and it will subsequently lead to this new project, which is massive in scale. So I think that is one of the benefits of working at the business school. This idea that you can come up with a great idea, you can implement it, has rewards and you get support. You really get support. You know, I can send an e-mail out to Crispin or someone and, you know, have an idea which hasn't been tested yet, but you get the support to, you know, bring it to fruition. And I think that's a really, a powerful thing to have at an academic institution. Yeah.
Emily Slade: Absolutely. That's so exciting.
Professor Crispin Coombs: Yeah, it was really cool. Sort of actually just to get, yeah, to have the delegation come and sort of see that connection.
Emily Slade: That's amazing. How do you ensure technology benefits people, not just organisations? I think you mentioned that earlier. Do you want to explore that a bit more?
Professor Crispin Coombs: Yeah, so let me give you one example sort of piece of work that I'm currently doing. So I've got a collaborative research project with a colleague in computer science professor, Georgina Cosman. And we're working with a company based in London that provide consultants, consulting support for many organizations that are doing transformation. So any sort of change, transformation, in project, IT system going in, you know, they're trying to do that. And you talk about the difference between actually how can we support organizations versus people and make it, you know, we're not not just focusing on. Well, organizations are people. You fundamentally. And I think what this project does in any sort of a change project, this is all about trying to figure out how can we support consultants so that when you're doing complex change in an organization, which is stressful for everybody involved and painful and these things are not straightforward, how can you make sure that the change goes well? And how can you predict whether it's going well? So what we're doing with the organization is essentially trying to use AI to predict the flight path of a complex project. So the project managers, the people involved can all have sleepless, not have sleep well at night. So it goes through nice and smoothly, but essentially work out actually, it's a bit like a plane in the air. How is it going to land? Are we going to hit turbulence? Are we going to have problems along the way? And can we predict it? And therefore, can we make adjustments in advance to do that? And one of the really nice things around that is it's all about trying to help both the consultants themselves make better decisions and therefore get more job satisfaction and feel like they can help the client and help more clients in a more effective way. It's about helping the organization itself sort of think, okay, we get more benefits and value out of it, but it's also helping the change managers, it's about helping the users, it's the workers, their job design changing, and making sure they're all progressing in a more positive way. So I think one of the nice things around that project and what we're enjoying around it is just understanding that we're trying to make the change in human behaviour more successful. We're trying to get that sort of engagement on side and using AI and it's not it's not here to replace your jobs. It's here to complement in and out and make and essentially make our experiences better. But thinking from a business management perspective, from a business school, because an awful lot of our work is focused in that aspect and making sort of UK PLC more effective. And that's one of the requirements of the project is actually it needs to be successful. It needs to promote the company we want it to succeed in that regard because that benefits people, employees and so forth.
Emily Slade: Yeah. And then I suppose we've touched on it, but how does the school's research environment create opportunities for students to learn from and engage with the cutting edge work? So you've spoken a little bit about the projects that they're able to do. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention in that respect?
Dr Albert Attom: Okay, I think, you know, we advocate for research-led teaching, you know, and I teach full of our all levels within the university. And the content I put out there from the real world case examples, from my own research, being able to show students data that we've collected, how we collected it, the methodology, being able to. So when I was doing one of the research projects that I did, we recorded YouTube videos for the healthcare workers and the healthcare leaders on capacity building. And what I decided to do after the project was I uploaded those videos on the learn page for the students. So I told the students about the project and actually the content directly fed into the module. So they were able to go and watch those YouTube videos, which enriched their learning, but also gave them that real world insight into the sorts of things that we do. So I think as when you're updating and developing content, you're always thinking, how can I bring in real-world examples from my research. How can I let students see some of the differences between theoretical perspectives and real-world lived realities of doing research? And one of the things I also like to do is I like to tell students about where the research went wrong. And one of the things I also do is I show them my, I keep a reflective log. whenever I go out into field work. And I read extracts of that reflective log to them and I explain the thought processes behind that, where mistakes were made in the research, how we overcame that and what we did. And I let them discuss it. What would you have done? How would you have dealt in this sort of situation? And they find that really enriching because obviously you've got a theoretical content from the academic literature, but they also want real-world case examples, but they love to have case examples from the person delivering the content. And not just, hey, it went really well, but actually, this is the, you know, this is what happens, this is how we overcome things, and this is the output, this is the impact. And I think that's what inspired the student I was telling you about earlier to contact me and ask me, this is something I'm really interested in. Can you help me go into this industry? I've seen the work that you've done. It applies to what we're learning in class and I really want to pursue this as a career. So I think Research-led teaching is, well, not crispy, it's embedded into what we do, isn't it? It's part and parcel of what we do, and it makes teaching easier because you're, you know, you're talking from lived experience, you're talking from... Things that you do every single day, and the students really appreciate that, and you can see that in the engagement types of questions that they ask you, the follow-ups that they'll have, and it also inspires students as well who... are thinking about career paths, thinking about further education, coming back, maybe if they're doing undergrad to do a master's, they'll come to you and say, oh, I love your research. You know, I want to do my dissertation in this area. I had two master's students reach out to me. They're not my students. They found me on the web and they said, we're doing a research project with the MOD. About organizational culture, we wanted to talk to you about it, and they're doing a final year dissertation, so I had a meeting with them and we discussed it, and they got back to me, Hey, we're now doing things differently based on that conversation, so I think... That creates an environment in which students know that academics are actively doing research and they can use that research not just for publications, which is really, really important, but to enrich their learning experience. And they really value that.
Professor Crispin Coombs: Yeah, absolutely. I think so. I think. It's the reality of, it's messy. I was like, for one of the things. It's nice and straightforward. And when you read in a textbook, you get in like, oh yeah, we do that, do that. And you get it. And one of the things, the key things you want to do in the classroom at Loughborough is very much get that sense across that sort of, okay, when it doesn't line up like that, what do we do? How do we deal with it? And one of the things we're hoping to do, so with the project I've got, around project management and using AI to predict whether a project's going to be successful or not. Our associate, who's working on that, is a recent graduate from Loverborough. And we're telling them that actually this is a really useful, what we want to do is get him back into the classroom because he's a recent graduate, he's done his master's here as well with us. learning about the complexity of it. And what we're finding in the early stage of the project is it's not going in a straight line. It's not going as we predicted and planned. Largely because, again, it's an AI-driven project. AI requires data and requires data available to train. the algorithms to make the decisions. And what we found fairly early on is that actually the amount of data we were going to be drawing on is no longer available to us because of data protection law and constrictions and existing contracts. So you know the data is there, but you're not allowed to use it legally. So fair enough. We follow the rules and some say we can't do that. So therefore, how would you get around that problem? Because the solution you want to create, it can be really valuable, but you've got to figure out how to do it. And the solution we're working up is coming up with a way of generating synthetic data. So it's not actual real data, but it's data that's generated through sort of a large language model, also like to ChatGPT, Copilot, and so forth, but based around information that we gathered on real-world parameters. So we talked to consults, we found out the pinch points, we get their experience from leading those projects and then use that to ask and set a sort of set of variables and actually ask ChatGPT to come up with a set of data that could approximate to that. You get that data set. You then go and sense check the results it produces with the consultants. Does this seem plausible? Now, this is not real data. This is not real company. So it gets around that problem. But it allows us to work through an example demonstration of this is what the system could do if we can have the data from the projects as we go through. Then you need to talk to the companies who are joining for new change management projects and saying, would you allow us to use your data to help train the AI system to be able to produce this type of output, which we think would benefit you as well? And what we want to do, and sort of having had that experience, and we were having this conversation in the other week with the company, the supervisors, Actually, we'd love to get the associate into the classroom, along with his managers, and that's to sort of tell this case study to our students to sort of say, Well, what do you do? when you don't have the data to create a wonderful AI solution. And how do you manage that? Because again, we just sort of think that that's really rich. That sort of, this is the type of, this is where your learning really happens, essentially, because, you know, it's solving those problems and making, yeah, how do you get around it? And there are ways, and it's really nice working with computer science and Georgina, because she's giving me new insights and I'm learning from the project as well. So it's not just a one way. aspect around learning here, so that we can learn things from our students. They go out and explore and have a challenge. Okay, yeah, how do we, and we can talk through them and talk through the problems. So that's really rewarding sort of from my perspective.
Emily Slade: Yeah, absolutely. Amazing. Global collaborations, how do they shape your research and its impact?
Dr Albert Attom: I mean, this is something that we're off the press is we're now doing it at the moment. So A while ago, actually not that long, maybe about six months ago, I had another of my great ideas, and it was around leadership development. The business school, when it comes to leadership education, we're quite good at that, to say the least. And I had an idea, and I pitched it to Professor Zainab, who is one of the experts here when it comes to cross-cultural leadership. She liked it, and we worked on a proposal together. And then she said, let's send it to the dean. So we sent it to the dean, very quickly, love it, really good. But the dean then said, I want you to think bigger. I want you to think global about this particular project. And so, okay, great. And then the dean actually facilitated a meeting for us to meet with the CEO of the Global Business School Network, GBSN. So we had a meeting with Dan and his team. We pitched the idea. They really liked it as well, but we worked together to change the idea and to adapt it to what we currently have. So I think... What that taught me was, when you have good ideas, it's good to work with global organisations on refining it. So the current idea that we have, the current leadership programme that we're going to implement, is very different from the original idea that I came up with. But it's better and it's going to be more impactful and more sustainable because, you know, the dean connected us with GBSN and Dan and his team, and they were able to have their expertise and shape the current program. So we're going to develop and deliver a new leadership development program with GBSN. So again, as I was saying earlier to Crispin, you can come up with a great idea. You can get the dean on board, you know, and open doors. and enable you to work with networks like GBSN to deliver projects and programs. So for me, I think that shows who we are as a business school. We are global in our view of the world. We are connecting with stakeholders at all levels. And I think we recognise the importance of collaborative programme and project delivery. And that's the really, if you're thinking about having impact, that's the way to go about it. So that's what I'd have to say, yeah.
Professor Crispin Coombs: I think then we sort of, I mean, I think about the global collaborations that I've been part of and LinkedIn, and one of them was thinking around AI and actually a project we did a few years ago now, thinking about actually what is it about humanity that we shouldn't give away to machines? what do we need to hang on to and hold on to? And we did this with a European network of like-minded academics. We've got 40 experts in a room, all focusing on that from 10 different countries, really thinking around where are the boundaries, what are the aspects we could look at? And we looked at around topics such as calm and conflict, we looked at well-being, we looked at attention, and we'd sort of see how sort of, you know, we're seeing news stories breaking now around actually, the addictive nature of some technologies and how they monopolise our attention. Everything's trying to capture our, get our eyeballs on it with clickbait and so forth. So we were looking at those aspects of it. And the principles that came through around actually where the boundaries was always sort of keeping the human in the loop, making sure we have the explainability of decision making around it, but also the human having being maintained in terms of critiquing how and when we use AI, where are the boundaries for AI and having that. So sort of that was a nice global project that was kind of doing a thought leadership piece to sort of to give us some boundaries. Actually, these are the things we have to hang on to retain oversight and ensure that AI works for good. And it has real potential in many, many ways. And we can't ignore those many applications of it, for good and ill, and they go through it. And therefore, having that sort of regular, but it has to be done at the sort of principle level, because each use case is so detailed and so different. If you don't, if you can have it in the principle, and that's the only probably practical way to have a legal mechanism to control it. it is to have principles that we can then test in courts and sort of say, actually, no, is this in line with the principle of looking out, making sure we've got decision-making power? Because at the moment it's running so fast. We're struggling to keep up and legislation can't keep them. So it's really the only practical way forward. So that was nice because it gave us a very much a European view. And you do see that contrast between a European view versus a US view and so forth, around how we should use AI and when the boundaries are.
Emily Slade: Yeah, that's so interesting. Why should students come to Loughborough?
Professor Crispin Coombs: I think a lot's... When I was doing open days and engaging the students and presenting them, I always used to feel like sort of actually, the first thing I would say is, personally, in terms of making your decision, why should you come to Loughborough? If at all possible, come to Loughborough. Actually come on campus, see the campus, live it. It's a very nice campus. Yes, exactly. I mean, it just gives you that feel of actually what it's like. And I do think in terms of that decision making, there's both a logic and a heart and dimensions to make. So sort of what's this thinking and what's this thinking? And how do you feel around it? And I think for a lot of students, when they come onto campus the first time, they get a sense, they can pick, yes, I can see myself here. And then you sort of say, well, actually, which course are you interested in and align it with that dimension. So I think that's one aspect. When it comes to the business school specifically around that, we've got excellent sort of staff and colleagues around in terms of delivering that. We talk very much about delivering sort of a real world experience, getting that practical impact into the classroom and having sort of tangible sort of detailed cases where you've actually seen how businesses are run, you experience that. We have various courses around giving practical experience like on trading platforms if you're interested in financial trading and get into that aspects as well. So you get a lot of experience in the classroom and building through. But I think the other aspect that I always felt really made a difference for our students was how integral the placement year and year in industry is. because I've seen my duties over many years come through the 1st and 2nd year, and they're getting up to speed, and then when they go out in industry, and many of them will come back and refer to me, sort of, that's where my real learning happened, and that's where I appreciated what I needed to do in those dimensions, and that makes such a difference, because it, as well as putting theory into practice, understanding it, it's actually just being in the workplace, understanding the dynamics of how you do a job, appreciating those sort of challenges, the importance of getting in on time, having time to arrange meetings, all the simple, the little things, but just getting that embedded in your mindset for when you come back into the final year, You've got the knowledge, you've got the work experience, you've seen how it works, you've seen how it doesn't work, as we were saying earlier, things get messy, that didn't, you know, it's completely different. They can then bring that into their assignments and their assessments, so you're at the ability to perform the best in your final year, which is where you actually are highest weighting for marks, this is placed. But they're so well placed then to go on and beyond and move into the sort of the workplace and choose what they want to do and shape in that regard. So I think it's very much the learning experience. I think it's that combination of why come to Loughborough? If I come back to it, it's a wonderful experience on campus. It's a really nice time. You make wonderful friends. You get that engagement and support. You get that connection with the academic colleague to help you and navigate you through that learning period. But then with an eye on that sadly you will leave, but you'll leave to go on and do great things, and you'll still be part of the family, but you need to, you're going beyond that, you're so well placed to sort of really accelerate your career, step into that first job, but do it confidently. And do it in a way that's like, okay, I'm gradually growing, I'm developing, I'm doing it with my friends. and then you can progress and then keep that network going, essentially going. You keep your friend networking going through. So I think there's all, it's that combination of the different elements coming together in the journey. I think it's such a rich experience.
Dr Albert Attom: I remember the first time I came onto the campus, I was like, this feels like a university. That's what I, you know, and I think students also feel that. I'm a placement tutor. And I actually have meetings with my students this week, and one of the things about being a placement tutor is you get to talk to the line managers of our students, and the feedback about... we know when we've got a Loughborough student. That is a common theme, from really large multinationals all the way down to small tech startups. Sometimes I have students that go abroad. One went to Germany, one was in India, one went to South Africa. The feedback is always consistent. There's something about studying at Loughborough that managers recognise because they get students from a lot of universities. I remember talking to, and this is a recurring theme, to students that have come back from placement. And one of the things they tell me is, when I came back from placement, I treat my final year like a job. I come in at 9 or 10, and I stay till about 5, and I go home, and my grades are getting better. What I've learned from placement is actually helping me finish off strong in the final year. And it's also helping me to get postdoc or I mean postgrad schemes and to go. So I had a meeting with one of my final year students who was, she initially wanted to go to one industry all her life. She came on placement, went into that industry and realised she didn't like it. She wanted to pivot somewhere else. And I was like, there's no better insight in that, right? Sometimes, you theoretically you think, oh, this is what I want to do. But coming to Loughborough allows you to test that in reality. And there's nothing better than coming out of it and saying, yes, okay, it is. But actually, what about if it's not? You've had that experience. And she was able to not only realise that wasn't what she wanted to do, but she found her true passion. And it aligned with her skill set. And she found it, you know, and she just, adapted to it. And so we had a meeting with her line manager. We moved her to a different department. And she came back in the final year, loved it. And they gave her a job offer. Yeah, so these are the sorts of lived realities that our students have. And it's really nice to be part of that journey with them, to see them grow from first year to when they graduate with that real world placement experience. The world of work is becoming more competitive. There's not as many jobs around. So a Loughborough student differentiates themselves, not just by coming to a great university, but also having that placement experience that really does bolster their CV. So when you're entering into the world of work, these days, line managers that I'm talking to, they're looking for what you bring as an individual. So your ability to say, I did really well academically, but I went on placement and these are the transferable skills that I can bring to your organisation. This is what I did on placement. This was my end of year project and this is how I think it can help or benefit your organisation. Managers like to hear that and I think Our university equips students to be able to confidently communicate that to potential employers. And I think the success rates, I don't know what the statistics are, but from my placement students, it seems it's very high. And so if you're thinking about why come to Loughborough, I think it's not just a grade, university experience, but we really do intentionally set you up for the real world of work. And I think that's crucial in the current context that we find ourselves in.
Emily Slade: Amazing. Well, thank you so much for your time today.
Dr Albert Attom: Great. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Notes on transcript
This transcript was produced using a combination of automated software and human transcribers and may contain errors. The audio version is definitive and should be checked before quoting.