We Train Students To Be Job Ready When They Graduate: Jaishree Chaturvedi, University Of Bradford

Study in UK: Shiksha spoke with Jaishree Chaturvedi, Regional Manager of the University of Bradford about what makes their university a good choice for Indian aspirants and how it supports and trains international students.

Q: What makes your university attractive to international students, especially to students from India?

A:  I just want to highlight that the University of Bradford is one of the oldest universities in the UK. We established in 1832, and that's kind of like a legacy we come with. At the University of Bradford, we are well known for a lot of number ones.

For example, our business school is triple accredited, and we are the founding members of triple accreditation. We are one of the first universities to start teaching peace studies. We are the first university to start teaching applied artificial intelligence, and that's where, like, you know, the wisdom which comes with the knowledge is something we are well known for, and that's what is attracting Indian students.

Of course, we do have a holistic experience for international students on campus. We have 130 nationalities currently studying on our campus. So, it's a very diversified university.

Q: What are the most popular courses at the University of Bradford?

A: In terms of the most popular courses, we are very well known for our business school. So, courses in the field of business management, and particularly we are one of the only four universities which teach logistics, supply chain, and data analytics in one course. We do have courses like digital and strategic marketing, and as I said, applied artificial intelligence, and that all comes from our business school.

Apart from that, we also have top-notch courses in the field of engineering. So, we are having courses in big data science, engineering management, satellite and space technology. We do have courses in the field of health sciences like public health, and life sciences which include a lot of courses in chemistry, cancer drug discovery, and pharmacology Those are very popular courses across India, too.

Q: What unique academic programs or research opportunities you are offering to international students?

A: As I said, every course we are offering on campus more or less is open for international students. If they are meeting their criteria, they are free to apply for those courses.

And particularly when talking about research, we are a research-led university. 96% in fact of our research is being commercialized. So, we are a research-focused university.

We have had two Queen's Anniversary Awards for our research as well in the last couple of years. The last one was just a few years ago for our archaeology effort. Students can come from any field in the field of business management, law, social sciences, engineering, health care, life sciences, and they can apply for any of our research courses.

Q: How does your university support international students in terms of orientation, and cultural integration or in overcoming the barriers in terms of language, and academic barriers?

A: We help them from the point of their student journey when they decide that the University of Bradford can be one of their potential universitie they would like to go and study there, from there to counselling them, to getting their application sorted, having them ensure that they have their financing in place, their visa is done, and make sure that the tickets are booked. Once they arrive, their accommodation is sorted to the point where we know that someone will be there to pick them up at the airport for the freshest week.

We help them throughout the journey, not only that, but once they are actually on campus, we take them around the city as well. We make sure that they settle in the university and they are comfortable in the city as well. So, that they start feeling that the university is their new home

You asked, importantly, with the language barrier. Of course, there are two aspects to that.

Number one, the students who are coming to the UK, come with their IELTS and TOEFL scores or PT scores in place so that they have those linguistic capabilities. However, you need to keep in mind that academic systems are very different from India to the UK. The markings are different, and how classes are being taught is different.

And what we do is we do have academic support in place who train international students to understand that new system, how to write assignments, how to do the teamwork. We do have our international language school where international students can learn one international language free of cost each year. We do teach around 10 to 12 international languages. We also help our students enhance their linguistic capabilities.

Q: What kind of scholarship opportunity or funding for international students you're providing?

A: We do help our international students with funding. Every Indian student who is joining us next year will be entitled to a scholarship of 5,000 pounds, an automatic scholarship for Indians towards the tuition fees. We also have certain courses and undergraduate which go up to 50% of tuition fee waiver on an average of 11,500 pounds.

Q: How do you ensure that international students feel valued and included in their social and academic aspects of campus life?

A: It's a very good question, I would say that because that's an important pillar at the University of Bradford. If I go back to the rankings, we have been ranked number one for social inclusion in the UK. Our ethos of the universities comes from equality, diversity, and inclusion. That's something we just don't say but live by it every day.

When we're talking about 131 nationalities on campus, we make sure that everyone feels part of the community. We do have, there's a, we call it safe space, all right? There's a room, and we call it an international room where all the international students have access to it throughout the clock, all right? Where they can come and they can be part of the group. Plus at the same time, we do have international student bodies. We do have Indian society, we do have Sri Lankan society, we do have African society.

Q: So if I can interrupt, how many Indian students currently you have you can give us an idea?

A: We do have around active 1,800 to 2,000 students on campus, Indian students.  We have a decent Indian community, but if you talk about South Asia or Southeast Asia, then it's much bigger. We are not dominating just with Indian students, but we are very rich in our student population.

Q: Are there any exchange programs, dual degree options, or any other partnership with other universities which can help the international students there?

A: Again, that's something we absolutely believe in. I'll start with the partnerships in India, all right? We do have our collaboration with IIT Delhi, and we also have our collaboration with IIM Jammu where we have student exchange options. We do have students coming in from both these institutes and for student exchange and the faculty exchange.

In Sri Lanka, we work with University of Kalinya, University of Jaffna, University of Colombo. We do have some similar partnerships in Jordan, in Bahrain. We also have partnerships with institutes in Spain as well.

So it's immersed in a way that it's part of your curriculum. So if students are looking forward to going study abroad, or a semester exchange, or a module exchange, they do have an option to do it, not only with their home country, but across many partners worldwide.

Q: What about the internship opportunities and work-study, like if they can work while studying there?

A: So we are a public university. Our students are legally allowed to work part-time during the course, 20 hours when they are studying, and 40 hours when they are on break.

And they can capitalize on that in terms of internships, projects, placement, or part-time jobs for that person. And we do have a dedicated career services team. We do have a dedicated career services team for international students who help them in getting these opportunities. We have an internal portal called a Handshake.

Every day is dedicated to a category. Mondays are the graduate jobs. Tuesdays are for internships. Thursdays are for part-time jobs. Wednesdays are for placements. Every week, all the opportunities career services teams are working on have been uploaded on this portal. So whatever students sign up for, every day of the week, they can get a notification of all the upcoming roles.

Then, of course, students can apply, and the career services team helps them in ensuring that they are well-equipped to apply for their jobs. Basic workshops like career workshops or how to apply for jobs, CV building, and how to do psychometric tests to make sure that they are job-ready by the time they graduate. Practical exposure is a very important part of that.

Q: What about when they complete their graduation, how do they get placed? What is the percentage and how they get placed?

A: 95% of our graduates find opportunities within six months. However, the status has been for the last couple of years, our career services team works in exactly the same way. So when you're talking about opportunities after the job or after the course, it's exactly how you're looking at the opportunities during the course.

One thing I want to highlight is that our employment rate is very high because when students graduate with us, they just don't get a degree, all right? During the course, we help them in their professional development. We help them in getting their professional certifications done. So it can be in the form of something related to their field.

It can be like doing a certificate with CIM or ACCA or getting project management certification or learning a technology related to their field such as SAS or AWS Academy certification or SAGE for accounting.

They graduate with a degree with international linguistic capabilities, practical exposure in some or other field, professional certification, and of course, lastly, the digital technology related to their field that distinguishes themselves.

Q: Do they get a placement from on campus?

A: The terminology on campus is very differently used in India. India has a concept where you're about to graduate, you'll get a company coming in, they'll interview, and they'll give you the offer later on the spot. Unfortunately, that's not the system in the UK. We do have career fairs. So we do host multiple career fairs across the year on campus. However, the career fairs are a little different. Career fairs are like, you do have a career fair where you'll have a lot of institutions or companies coming in on board.

But the whole idea is that at the end of the day, if you find anything relevant to your profile, you have to go back online and apply for the job. The system is different. We get the top of the top companies coming in on campus.

Our career services team is there to support students in getting the applications processed. However, in international workspace, let it be US, UK, Canada, Australia, or anywhere for that per se, it is very student-led approach

One thing I absolutely recommend to all our international students is that when you're looking forward to building a career abroad that process starts from day one. The minute you land in the country, you cannot wait for your final semester to start hunting for a new job. You are networking, you are learning skill and soft skill process. It starts from day one on your campus.

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