A presentation from the STEM Annual Conference 2014.
Institutions across the country are active in widening participation (WP) to higher education. Many of these institutions are or indeed have been involved in projects aimed at enhancing the experience of all their students. However the experience of the widening participation student is often very different to the rest of the student cohort.
Many WP students are not able to take part in extra- or co-curricular activities such as; study abroad opportunities volunteering unpaid internships society or other representative roles. The engagement with such a rich and diverse set of student experiences leads to the development of key graduate attributes and in turn increased employability. As a result of an undergraduate experience that is substantially different to their peers the WP student may be a risk of not establishing those networks and capital that can lead to this increased employability. It is clear that it is not enough to simply widen access; more must be done to guarantee equity of experience once students are on campus.
In order to facilitate discussion a selection of student case studies will illustrate a) the reality of the WP STEM student experience and b) how successful and innovative projects have started to address the inequity of STEM student experience.
