By Rachel Measures, BA (Hons) Media, 3rd Year.
University is 50% about your course, and 50% everything else. University is an amazing three years of constant opportunities as long as you make it that way. I have been super fortunate to be a part of a society, to have created my own volunteering projects, to have impacted my course as a course rep and to have taken part with on-campus work. It’s given me so much more to talk about and has stopped me from ever being bored.
Unlike your degree, these activities don’t necessarily earn you a qualification or an award, but the Hallam Award gives recognition for that 50% that isn’t given credit in your course.
The Student’s Union runs this scheme, and it’s designed to help you to reflect on transferable skills that you have developed over the duration of your time at university. This is exactly what you need when you come to apply for jobs after you graduate. If you are successful in writing your Hallam Award forms, you could gain Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum awards which will be read out at graduation – how cool!
I wrote three Skill Development forms and the Final Report form. At times the forms were difficult to complete as talking 
about skills can be a hard slog, but that’s entirely the point. These forms allowed me to figure out key skills that I had developed from my extracurricular activities and enabled me to learn how to talk about myself and my responsibilities in a positive way, and this is very important when it comes to employability and job interviews.
I was very honoured to receive a Platinum Hallam Award on Friday 13th October at the Hallam Award Celebration Evening and I had such a lovely night. It was this evening, full of food, drinks, and a photo booth, that made all the effort of writing the forms worth it, especially as I was fortunate to have my friends celebrating beside me.
Read more: https://www.hallamstudentsunion.com/skills_opportunities/hallamaward/
