Transferable Skills Project

OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMES

The Transferable Skills Project (Transferable Skills in Third-Level Modern Languages Curricula) is a collaboration between the Careers Services and modern language departments of Dublin City University (DCU), Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT). The project was initiated because careers advisers had observed that many of the students they worked with lacked the confidence to promote themselves effectively to employers when seeking work, partly as a result of not being aware of the skills they had gained during their time in higher education. Many of these students were studying non-vocational programmes, such as modern languages. It was decided therefore to pilot the project with language students on the basis that the learning from the project would be applicable to all disciplines.

The Transferable Skills Project aimed to raise third-level language students' awareness of their transferable skills, not by teaching them these skills per se, but by explicitly integrating the skills into the regular teaching curriculum for their subject. It was hoped that doing this would enable students to see the relevance of what they were learning, not only to their academic lives, but to whatever career they would pursue afterwards.

The main objectives and outcomes of the project have included the following:

Research on attitudes to transferable skills with key stakeholder groups has been carried out (see skills research).
A pilot programme, which focused on making skills explicit within the curriculum, was implemented in each of the three institutions (see skills research).
Implementation of different strategies for integrating skills into the curriculum (see useful resources).
Mainstreaming the integration of transferable skills into academic courses in each institution.
Development of this website for disseminating the project's resources and other relevant information.

The project was funded by the Higher Education Authority (HEA), from January 2003 to January 2006, under its Strategic Initiatives Scheme.

STUDENT QUOTES

I've had to rely on myself to realise what I'm doing, when I come to look at careers and what skills you need to do a jo... If it is made explicit, and it makes us actually aware of what we are doing, then I think that not just our performance in class will improve but also with regard to careers, you'd be more aware of what you're developing.
Italian & English, Year 3

(The lecturer) started off by saying a lot of people with languages think that that's their only skill... and I completely identify with that... But now I'd definitely be more confident, even about doing interviews and things like that compared to before.
Languages & Marketing, Year 4

E-MAIL: skills@tcd.ie LAST UPDATED: January 04 2006 Sitemap