Employability Conference

In this panel session, we look at some examples of best practice for embedding employability in humanities and social science degrees delivered in the School of Area Studies, Sociology, History, Politics and Literature (SASSHPL). The narrative around the ‘value’ of humanities and social science (H&SS) degrees has recently become rather toxic, being politicised as less worthwhile than STEM degrees. Often this has focused on a misconceived idea that H&SS degrees don’t prepare their students for employment. Colleagues from across the four key disciplinary areas in SASSHPL will debunk this fallacy, by looking at the ways in which our degree programmes build our students’ skills, confidence and experience – leading to what a recent British Academy report has identified as particular values of Arts, Humanities and Social Science degrees – flexibility, adaptability and resilience. Each subject area representative speaking for around 10 minutes, we will identify a variety of ways in which employability has long been embedded in our curricula, including via co-production, collaboration with external partners and the ways in which transferable skills are nurtured through apparently more traditional teaching and learning.