Daniel Roberts
BA (Hons) Sports Management with Placement, 2019
About me
- Volunteering Lead, GreaterSport
- Studied: BA (Hons) Sports Management with Placement, 2019
- Contact me on LinkedIn
ABOUT MY CAREER
During my studies, I engaged with a range of activities that helped me develop professional skills. I was a Peer Mentor, Course Rep, Sports Council BUCS Rep and ran in the Student Elections. I played for and was on the committee of the Men’s Football Team and I was employed as a Manchester Met Sport Activator for second and final years of study. I also gave tours to visiting international universities linked to the course I studied.
My placement year was with MMU Sport as their Sport Volunteering Assistant and this experience was key to everything about my degree. It contextualised a lot of the learning from the first two years, it allowed me to expand on the work I had already been doing as a volunteer and it gave me ideas and content to write about during my final year. The experience I gained from the placement meant I felt comfortable and confident starting the new job after graduation and I was already familiar with working full time.
The course I studied offered me a great platform to learn, but also to volunteer in sport across Greater Manchester, which led met to secure my current role as Volunteering Lead at GreaterSport. It was ultimately the combination of course content, industry experience, volunteering and building connections as well as the personal development that made me stand out as the most suitable candidate for my current role.
In my current role, I build an understanding of how to enable people to move more and be active in their communities. The role is to test and learn new approaches to engage, support and empower community sport and activity to be more representative of Greater Manchester’s population by working in collaboration with Community Support Organisations.
Examples of my responsibilities include building connections with and between different sectors and layers of the system, find different perspectives from different layers of the system and share learning as the work progresses. I critically analyse research, learning and insights often to help steer projects I’m working on and to ensure that I’m up to date on latest research, best practice, funding etc. to share with partners. I present regularly and the communication skills I developed at Manchester Met have been key to building and maintaining relationships.
The confidence I gained in myself from studying and volunteering was a game changer.
MY TOP TIP FOR STUDENTS IS
Volunteer, simple as. You’ll learn more, you’ll grow faster and you’ll gain the experience that employers are looking for, you don’t need a job to get experience: you just need to volunteer. There are no requirements other than turning up. It’s important to be persistent because not every opportunity is going to be for you, but even that will teach you what you do and don’t want from a future career or opportunity. Volunteering allows you to hone in and identify where your strengths really lie. It teaches you how to be disciplined, interact with different people, adapt to different roles and make lifetime career-supporting connections. All the above without the pressure of a formal responsibility.
I’M INSPIRED BY
I’m inspired by people who like to do things differently.
WHY I LOVE MANCHESTER MET
The Union at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Over the course of four years at Manchester Met, with the support of lecturers, union staff, Manchester Met Sport staff and the Careers service, I was able to piece together all the opportunities to develop and refine myself as a person and a professional and take the next step into a professional career.
The course tutors deserve a nod for the encouragement to go out and volunteer.