The Practice of Practice Weeks through the Eyes of an Outsider

Practice Weeks!? I have been hearing Business School students and staff discussions in the background on this rather new to me concept for quite a while. I have never had the chance to attend any of the Practice Weeks due to other arrangements up until now, when I was invited to support the PW team and 2nd year BA Business Management students on one of their practice sessions in Bedford. I have to admit that I am not directly engaged with this project and my discussion is thus following an outsider perspective.

What Practice Means for Students – and for me

When I first became a manager in the Business School, I could go whole weeks without missing teaching.  Now, largely because of our Practice Weeks I find myself pining for teaching.

Being head of a department doesn't allow for teaching, partly because of the size of the management task and partly because the flexibility needed doesn't mesh with the fixed nature of a timetable.  So teaching stopped when I took on my current role last year.  What I get to do instead, however, is go to the high points for students.  I am invited to see what is going on, to give profile and to present prizes.  High points can be events such as Vietnam’s Women’s Day for the Vietnamese Society but most often they are the Business School’s Practice Weeks.

Eating Soup with a Fork: Teaching Entrepreneurship to Business Students

More and more people are getting aware of the benefits of “inventing a job rather than finding a job”. Across the world, universities and colleges are rushing to introduce entrepreneurship classes. This phenomenon has rekindled the age-old debate, whether entrepreneurship can be taught in business schools or one is better off learning it ‘by doing’?