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Ooh, the Graduate Development Programme. Growth Development Programme.
Gross Domestic Product. Ah yes, Graduate Development Programme.
It's a sub sort of course you do half way through, during your course. But that's all
I know really. I think that's to do with careers, you talk
about careers – future careers. Just to help you throughout your course, I
suppose. Skills that you need to use later on in careers
and future life. Something to help students get jobs once they
graduate. Oh that's the Graduate Development Programme,
there you go. Basically during GDP we are allocated a tutor.
If we have got any concerns with the course or we are struggling we can always refer it
to our GDP facilitator. Issues with where to hand coursework in, what
to do if we need to hand it in late. It's a tutor we can go to outside of our normal
tutor and outside the head of our course, stuff like that.
It gave us someone to go and voice our concerns to and she made us feel more comfortable.
It's like getting a relationship with one person and then they are there to help you.
At the start of the course GDP sessions were quite a good way to get to know each other
on the course. GDP has really helped me settle in my first
year at UWE because it's a small group of people, so immediately you get to know about
15 people and that really helps on a large campus.
Like in our first meeting we were all obviously do not know anyone quite nervous.
It's a confidence booster, very much more hands on, more interactive, team building
as well. My first year in GDP we have basically been
sorting out any problems that we have had. We have done things such as the marking exercise.
Like if we had problems with referencing or anything we could just take it into GDP.
Even like the Harvard referencing system, we did not know how to do it so had a session
on that. We could talk to out tutor and say what you do not know about and then we do
it in GDP. You do get information in your group that
you would not get otherwise, like exam help. It's basically gone over everything that we
have done and made sure that we have got no real problems, so that everything is running
smoothly. I think GDP has really given us an idea about
when we graduate – how we are actually going to approach companies we want to work for.
They're getting you ready for when you go into industry, they're bringing in industry
professionals to meet and talk to. You get help with contacts, with CV workshops.
Generally, it's trying to teach us skills for interacting in the workplace and how to
get into business once we have got our degree. It's gearing me towards the industry when
I finish and I think that if it was not doing that I would be very nervous about what I
am going to go into after this really. It's probably been the most useful module,
it's been the most practical and something that I did not know I can transfer into my
career for the future. You absolutely have to go for it, it's not
just theoretical book learning, you are actually going out and learning a bit of real world
knowledge and you need that. Because, let's face it you are only here for three years.
It's kind of taken it on to that next level really - getting us ready for when we leave.