Nigerian Students Society 2024-25

Nigerian Students' Society

Type of Grant

Big Ideas Grant

What the Grant Supported

Big Ideas Grant funding supported the delivery of Beyond the Degree: Blueprints to Career Success by enabling the Nigerian Student Society to host a large-scale career development event for students. The funding allowed the society to provide access to external speakers, career support resources, and catering, creating an inclusive opportunity for students to gain guidance on employability, networking, and professional development.

The grant also supported the growth and visibility of the society by helping establish new initiatives, strengthen partnerships, and increase engagement with the wider University of Glasgow community. By enabling a successful event, the funding contributed to the development of future opportunities including mentorship, ambassador programmes, and further student support initiatives.

Long-Term Impacts

• Enabled the NSSUofG's "Beyond the Degree: Blueprints for Career Success" event to support a larger number of students by providing access to external experts in job market guidance and career preperation.
• Allowed officers to better promote, organise, and accomodate attendees, creating a more impactful event experience.
• Helped students feel supported and valued by demonstrating the society's committment to addressing their career development needs.
• Created opportunities for further initiatives through new connections and networks formed at the event, including a society podcast, alumni-led CV support team, an ambassadorship committee, and future cultural events.
• Increased the society's visibility on the main SRC platform from 0 to 26+ members, ensuring current members can access society updates and relevant SRC opportunities.
• Encouraged the officer team to develop stronger marketing strategies through expanded email and social media outreach, increasing awareness of opportunities available to members and the wider university community.

Inclusivity & Accessibility

"Being awarded the Big Ideas Grant had given the NSSUofG a big boost in three ways.

- First, this grant has allowed us to build up our funds to ensure that we did not “break the bank” and are financially secure enough to continue supporting our society with more opportunities after this event such as the NSSUofG upcoming podcast for NSSUofG student members and many more initiatives being developed.

- Second, this grant encouraged us to know how much the SRC is willing to support societies who are seeking out innovative and creative ways to support UofG students and has motivated us to design event more amazing events that we hope will continue to inspire, build and grow students in our community as well as students from collaborating UofG communities.

- Thirdly, this grant also enabled us to cater to building an inclusive and accessible environment for students within the topic of career development, job market preparation and successful skill development. Our student attendees felt heard, seen, encouraged, inspired and motivated towards pathways that can aid their success after their degrees. "

Lessons Learned

"There are a few key lessons our society learned from the process of applying for this grant:

- We learned how important it is to ensure we ask detail-oriented questions during the registration process aspect of events such as student IDs numbers that will help up identify the different student groups, we would be entertaining.

- Although we tried and didn’t succeed in getting our participants to register for the event through the SRC platform due to their lack of familiarity with the platform, we learned that SRC ticket processes enable us to showcase our attendance rate much more easily during the grant application process and would make it seamless for us when it comes to verifying detailed information.

- We also learned how important it was for us to track our finances as closely as we did which ensured our ability to be very detailed in our funding request, spending breakdowns and outlines of how we desired to pursue funding for the event. This made applying for the grant easy and ensured we were able to seek for what we needed.

- Considering our event was quite diverse and included multiple partners and moving parts, we learned how valuable it was that we had concrete information about our event and its different sessions to include in our application, inclusive of having verified every other aspect needed for the event so we could apply for a much more concrete funding figure. "

Additional SRC Support Provided

• Recieved strong support from the SRC in securing suitable event spaces, including the William's Room and the Wee G.
• Utilised the SRC Lending Library by requesting equipment such as hot water urns, a table, and a display board, although these items were ultimately not used due to space and access limitations.
• Appreciated the availability and support provided through the SRC's resources, even where equipment could not be utilised on the day.
• Benefited from the hands-on guidance and advice provided by the Clubs and Societies Coordinator throughout the grant application process.

Would Your Society Apply for an SRC Grant Again?

"Yes!

Our society is appreciative of all the support the SRC has given us towards this event through the services made available for use and the grant being given to us. We have been encouraged and inspired to continue using the support of the SRC to continue providing supportive and thriving opportunities and events for Nigerian students at UofG as well as ensuring these opportunities are inclusive and supportive to all UofG students who are interested in participating in them."