Stands, stares and stairs; UCAS Birmingham Fair 25-26 June 2018

This week, reflections on the Birmingham UCAS Fair at the NEC and the coming together of year 12 students, teachers and reps from most of the country's HE providers.

The UCAS Fair is probably the first meaningful chance for sixth form and college students to get up close and inspect a number of universities gathered under the same roof. A chance to form early, concrete opinions. This year, we were given the huge fillip of having our logo featured in the programme. Imagine. The good studes of the Black Country were also treated to me and Pete on the stand. He 'web man'; me 'spreadsheet man'. Pete's taller and more animated than; we probably complemented each other quite well.

Hotel livin'; the Ibis, NEC

Leaving the office also gave me another chance for hotel livin' and some pseudo market research (see my last escapade). And the chance to pinch and repurpose a few stand and prospectus ideas. Here area a few take away points:

• Some of the stands looked tired. Ours included. We didn't stick out, but our roll up banners and materials are more 'Blue Nun' than 'Chateau Neuf'. Still, see point below.
• Cardiff Met, Northampton and others have bust budgets on stands which have more mood lighting, soft furnishing and gizmoic mod cons than my house could ever hope to have. I wonder, however, how much of a lasting impact this splurge will have (see 'corporate' below). I'm not sure I would have been that impressed. Are the year 12's? (Again, see 'corporate' below). And lavish sets might be pleasing on the eye, but you won't catch many of the Russell Group going for these histrionics. Not this year, anyway.
• Everything here is so corporate. Numbers, tickets, brochures, fonts, carpets, pricey catering, gimmicks and giveaways. Polo shirts with embroidered uni logos. Which is as well; no one has the time or would want to drift round yurts, freak zones and hip hang outs. And yes, while attempts to get in with the kids could back fire, might there be mileage in going 'off page'? Could non-corporate stand out? Pete bigged up our arts' degree show - could our A&D folk bring anything which might shake attendees out of the torpor of bags for life and having the living heck scanned out of their barcodes?

Pete in action

• Hertfordshire's stand was bold. An expansive white background, with nothing on it except some black block text encouraging people to 'write their own future'. Something like that. Clever perhaps, but kind of barren looking. Hope they did ok, but not too ok.

The Herts stand is unveiled!

• Otherwise, lots of floor vinyls, boxes and lots of places teaching contemporary music. Whatever that is, and whatever that involves. And Birmingham City Uni all over the place.
• Nursing is always the most popular course. I developed a joke for Midwifery students* which sunk and struck by the popularity of Engineering. I'd recently read about the stuttering pace of the Women in Engineering initiative, although it seems alive and well in the NEC. I respect Engineers. Compasses and calipers make me  giddy - the closest I get to bridge building is bodged DIY and vague recollections of stuff like Swarfega and Engineers' Blue from school. 
• That's right, Engineers' Blue. Let's move on.
• My selling powers are weak. I will engage if there's something I believe in - or at least understand - and people are interested. Art & Design or English Lit courses? No problem. Law? Fine. An LLB is an LLB is an LLB. I guess. But Automotive and Mechanical Engineering? Waving promises of a building opening in 2019 only goes so far. If STEM action groups, steering boards, advisory panels and what not could chuck Marketing a bone, that'd be nice. Of the many established and reputed STEM providers already out there; Herts have got a racing car; Anglia Ruskin their own new Science Centre and, as I say, some of the stands here probably cost more than our library. It's going to take a lot more than a battered UCAS fair stand, the stretched resources in Marketing and Digital Marketing, 'spreadsheet guy' and a few video screens on campus to sell our brand new portfolio. Ta. 

At events like these, it's important to present as strong a picture of the Uni as possible. The most important prompt I gave to students was to visit different universities and see what's going on at different places, regardless of the fluffy marketing and communications and the dry, barely plausible, rarely referenced stats online (not many students are too bothered by the NSS, let alone TEF). I gave this advice somewhat forcibly, with my earnest face; there's still a job to get us even on a list of HEIs for people to consider.

My earnest face

I suspect that UCAS Conferences don't play the starring role in making people's minds up, but they form a very key early impression. After all, where would Luke Skywalker be know if that funny lil' R2D2 robot man hadn't played that video of Princess Leia banging on about Obi Wan Kenobi being "her only hope"?


* The Midwifery joke? Well, alright.
Convention attendee - 'Excuse me, do you do Midwifery?'
Spreadsheet man - 'Yes; that's a course we ... deliver.'

I should maybe have gone for 'yes, that's a course which really delivers,' but I struggle with my own job, let alone any aspirations in the field of comedy

Escaping the Atrium

A write up of a recent trip, pushing out and exploring a world beyond conditional formatting on Excel and poorly executed SQL queries....

The Atrium's a funny place. It's home for those bits and pieces of "Professional Services" which most people avoid. HR, IT, Finance, Facilities, Marketing, Admissions and the UK Recruitment team. Those sorts of people. And, more recently, a group of academics who "must have said something" and have been banished to the south east corner of the building. Listen carefully, and you can hear them, powering up SPSS and trying to tap distress signals through the malfunctioning heating system.....

While the wheels of power turn, shiny buildings take shape and teaching and learning goes on across Park St, life in The Atrium can feel disembodied and not very university-like. The place where crates hang out, looking menacing, and mismatched furniture comes to die.

The Atrium - 'come see us sometime'

It's nice to get out and about every now and again. Some time earlier this year, I was asked to facilitate a forum at the University's recent Teachers and Advisers Conference. This took place last Wednesday and was a treat, even if I missed most of the catering. My own fault; I was getting this fantastic picture taken by a proper photographer:

"Do you want fries with that?"

The session - where such diverse institutions as Vandyke Upper to Central Beds College to Hitchin Boys School were represented - enabled me to perform a covert piece of market research and to listen into the thoughts and concerns of those present. Given that everyone had signed up for a "forum", and, therefore, a meeting of minds and exchange of ideas, I saw my role very much in terms of just nudging things along and throwing in the odd question bomb or two. Such as:

"What pressures do young people face if/when they're thinking about university?"

- and -

"How can schools and universities help?"

After a series of breakouts, the first issue to generate heat was finance:

• debt aversion - potential students need to understand repayment terms;
• more communication around bursaries is needed;
• maintenance - some won't attend if none available, creating another 'squeezed middle'; i.e. households with incomes more than £25k pa, but who don't have the level of income which would support their kids through unis;
• party people - those along for a ride and who don't see themselves as ever earning enough to start paying back.

There was some discussion and one or two points of departure for people in the group. Certainly, year on year, the Save our Student quantitative survey gives some graphic stats. For the 2017 results from more than 2300 students, click here.

A more pronounced and unified response was given to unconditional offers, which were picked up on throughout the day. They're not popular with schools, let me tell you. I've blogged about unconditional offers before and explained why I think U offers aren't great.

Still, I don't have to deal with the fallout. Teachers and advisers do. We were told how unconditional offers lead in a proportion of students dropping attendance and grades. The group recognised universities' needed to maximise income, but those who have been more profligate at dishing out offers came in for heavy scorn. Nottingham Trent and Lincoln were mentioned in despatches.

The third main area of concern was mental health. No surprise, although very sobering to hear about anxiety, self-harming and communication issues among people at a key, challenging moment in their personal developments. Again, recently published statistics, this time from the Institute for Public Policy Research, quantify some of the issues (for example a six-fold increase in cases of declared mental health conditions in 2015 vs 2006 and record numbers of student suicides and a 20% increase in the number of students dropping out and suffering mental health conditions. For more detail,see the IPPR website).

All in all, a valuable day spent out of the office. I've just had and will have very different excursions this week, to the London School of Commerce. By which time, I'll probably be gagging for the reassuring comfort of my two screens, Microsoft Powerpoint and my tea/soup drawer.

Market research; back to "business as usual"