Graduate Nadiah grows her skills with Welsh charity

Here we meet Nadiah who took part in the GROW – Graduate Opportunities Work Experience programme. GROW helps OU in Wales graduates who have qualified since 2020 and are unemployed or feeling underemployed. The programme can help them prepare for their next steps, manage any challenges they face and explore their ambitions. The team can also arrange paid work-experience placements.

‘I recently completed my BSc Design and Innovation and graduated during the pandemic, says Nadiah Salih from Cardiff. ‘I have two kids and I was solely responsible for home-schooling them both. Home-schooling was one of the hardest things I had to do as it took up a lot of my day. I was also a full-time student and so I was a teacher, student, cook and cleaner during the pandemic!’

‘This left no time to get any kind of work experience. Before I started on the GROW programme, I had no idea what I wanted to do. All I knew was that I wanted to try out different things for experience so I could get a feel of different jobs. A lack of confidence was holding me back. I had done one internship before but had never had a proper long-term job’.

Nadiah was attracted to GROW due to the support she could get.

‘I needed someone to look with me at opportunities as I struggled to find a work placement that would accept my situation’, she adds.

Nadiah was placed with RSPB in a part-time, flexible, remote placement as a project assistant working on the National Nature Service (NNS) website.

‘I was retrieving stories, articles and job role descriptions of stakeholders. During my time I improved my communication and writing skills and met several people from all over Wales. I was also able to work as part of a team which I really enjoyed. My line manager was Rebecca, and she was amazing and very supportive’.

‘Nadiah was a pleasure to work with and it was great to see her confidence grow,’ says Rebecca Falvey, Project Development Manager at RSPB Cymru said, ‘Hosting a GROW graduate was a really positive experience and we have already recommended it to another organisation’.

Nadiah has since started a MSc in Engineering with the OU and has even secured another internship that was advertised on Opportunity Hub.

‘I applied for it straight away as it was something I was interested in doing,’ she explains ‘I had to do an activity before the interview and the interview itself was really good. I was able to answer every question with confidence and explain why I wanted this role and how my previous role experience fitted into this’.

Overall, I felt more confident in approaching employers. I would advise anyone do to this GROW programme if they can - it’s amazing and it really does make a difference. This programme allows you to dip your feet into new things that you might not have considered before.

Nadiah Salih
OU graduate