Online Identities - COPYourself Meeting #1

Notes from the first meeting of LCC COPYourself, taken from Filip's Blog, which you can see by clicking here.

COPYourself is a community of students from London College of Communication who help with the development, and subsequently use and spread resources that enable students to promote themselves as entry-level professionals. The community started off with a first meeting on 30 May, where we identified LCC students would like to see the following happening at their college:

• CV drop-in tutorials provided by someone but students’ own tutors (1 on 1)
• Interview workshops provided by someone else but students’ own tutors (1 on 1)
• More industry networking opportunities
• More collaborations and projects with external companies
• Portfolio workshops - advice on what types are best, and how to go about creating them
• Workshops where you can get help building your professional website/portfolio

During our meeting we have established that there is a certain level of support from our tutors when it comes to our online presence and self-marketing skills, but these vary from course to course. The general pattern is that even students who do receive support from their tutors at the moment would prefer to receive this from someone who doesn’t personally know them, but knows the industry. This is because students feel tutors make biased judgements about them, and hence do not provide a good enough advice.

A specialist who would provide this support, 1 on 1 sessions, and who would as well staff a general drop in centre within college to help students with their portfolios would definitely be welcome. During our next meeting we will be discussing what particular resources should be developed to achieve these aims and fulfil the above listed students’ needs.