Rate My Placement

Our tour westwards began in fine style with a real truckers breakfast at the Rumblin Tums Cafe en route! Ali was pretty reluctant to go in but was soon happy with my decision after tucking into a greasy bacon bap at half 7 on a Monday morning…

We arrived at the lovely green Cheltenham campus and had a really productive meeting in the Business School. Due to the time of year the campus wasn’t teeming with students but luckily this meant we got to meet all the placement staff in a good placements focused uni!

The University of Gloucestershire rates as follows:

Weather – 8 / 10 – we were greeted with bright sunshine which was a nice suprise for August!
Greenery – 10/ 10 - the Cheltenham campus was indeed very green, something us ex Loughborough students love
Beer – 4 / 10 – Sadly we had to drive to Cardiff so couldn’t manage a swift half…
Bird watching – 3 / 10 – very quiet on this front, couple of pigeons knocking about…
The Pot Noodle test – 7 / 10 – no pot noodles but the canteen was open for very reasonably priced jacket potatoes!
The University of Gloucestershire’s overall rating = 32/50 - not bad at all.

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Following on from our success in the HSBC Unipreneurs competition, we decided to enter the ‘grown-up’ version - the HSBC Start-Up Stars Awards. The Awards are one of the UK’s most highly-coveted small business awards. Held annually since 2000, it recognises fledgling businesses with an inspiring blend of creativity, determination and business acumen.

This year, the overall winner will pick up a cheque for £50,000 to help grow their business. Not bad eh!

We submitted our entry back in May, and were invited to attend the Southern Region networking event in Oxford where we were named as one of the Top 20 Regional Finalists. Well we are delighted to announce that we have just been named as a Regional Winner, which means that RateMyPlacement is now being considered for the National Final.

We’re hoping that the lovely people at Aspect Communications will be gaining us some more exposure in the local press, and perhaps even an appearance on Sky News!

Be sure to check back here to find out if we reach the National Final.

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Last Thursday Ali and I were invited to the Catalyst Awards which are designed to recognise and reward businesses that help social communities by using social technology.

Slightly confused? So were we to be honest(!), but we thought we’d go along anyways! The more people we chatted to, the more fantastic websites and unique ideas we came across - click here to view the nominees - our favourite was a website called Slivers of Time which connects people to local employers to gain extra income in any spare hours they may have.

The awards were set in a big room over looking London and standing in the bright morning sunshine on the balcony eating canapés and drinking free orange juice made really made our day. The awards themselves were coordinated by Make Your Mark and launched last year through Gordon Browns new ‘Council on Social Action’ to facilitate social improvement throughout the UK. However, we never thought Gordon Brown would actually be there, so we were surprised to say the least when he stood up and spoke!

After his speaking part Ali and I chatted to him for over an hour about RateMyPlacement and he commented, “RateMyPlacement is one of the best websites I’ve ever seen”. Cheers Gordon.*

*The above sentence may or may not have actually happened, and we may or may not have actually met the PM. RateMyPlacement does not condone lying or the promotion of any false information!

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