Enhancing computing student employability skills through partnership working in STEM outreach

Student volunteering is growing in the UK and elsewhere, and there is an ongoing debate about whether it is really “self-evidently a ‘good thing’” or whether there is a greater need for reflection of whether this is true (Holdsworth and Quinn, 2010). This paper presents a personal reflection of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) volunteering as a potential route to increasing Computing student’s employability. This paper looks at an approach at the University of Northampton that involves: - Linking but not combining a local STEM volunteering scheme to the National STEM Volunteers (STEMNet 2015) - Creation of a STEM Steering Group that has representation across all parts of the university. Three brief case studies of computing student volunteers at different stages will be presented and end with a personal reflection based on observations over a ten year period.