Students have told Forge Press they feel the University of Sheffield is overlooking their future career paths.
The University of Sheffield hands out The Times’ hardbound Top 100 Graduate Employers book every year, featuring a variety of media companies based in the UK and abroad. However, no media companies and only a few creative industries were present at the non-STEM careers fair held on the 23rd October.
Despite being the UK’s number one university for journalism, the only companies attending under ‘media, journalism and publishing’ were Derbyshire Constabulary, McLaren Automotive, Pricecheck and NHS Pathways.
First-year journalism student Kamilia said that industry connections were highlighted when she was applying for the course and were part of the reason she, and many others, applied.
Similarly, creative and performing arts, culture, and design had three companies present, two of which were engineering and automotive companies.
The creative industries contributed £124 billion in gross value added to the UK economy in 2023. Film and TV brought in £21.2 billion, and publishing brought in £11.6 billion. Whilst these industries are linked by their creativity, they are distinct in their skill sets, and given the amount they provide to the UK economy, they should not be overlooked or conflated.
Students told us that categorising this fair as ‘non-STEM’ creates a binary division between supposed ‘STEM’ and ‘non-STEM’ careers, thereby minimising the range of pathways available to arts and humanities students.
By contrast, ‘engineering and manufacturing’ and ‘IT’ had 48 and 49 companies, respectively, and some students expressed animosity towards companies that attended the fair.
Final-year history student Alice attended both the STEM and non-STEM careers fair and was “disappointed to see companies in nuclear security technology such as AWE”, as the AWE representatives “couldn’t straightforwardly tell us what the company actually does with nuclear technology”.
She went on to say other companies, such as Unilever, “were a cause of discomfort’ due to their “failings in upholding human rights standards and protecting the environment”, ending with her thoughts that the university should not “be supporting such companies, particularly while they make an effort to be sustainable on campus.”
Sustainability & Development Officer Anna James commented that “real sustainable careers feel pretty inaccessible to students” due to greenwashing within career recruitment and difficulty determining if companies align with students’ personal values, or if “only a section of their specifically-curated marketing does.”
Whilst Anna was able to share information on greenwashing in careers via the SU Instagram, she reported that support for students finding sustainable careers “remains difficult when specific companies are invited onto our campuses under the guise of being integral research partners, with no additional resources created and distributed to support students in deciphering complex green-washing mechanisms.”
We approached the University of Sheffield for a comment. They replied:
“Our Careers and Employability Service supports all students in exploring the wide range of career options available to them, including opportunities that go beyond the traditional routes associated with their degree. Many employers who attend our careers events, even those that seem highly specialised, offer various roles which can be suited to a variety of backgrounds.
“Employers in some sought after industries – such as publishing, media, and music – rely less on formal recruitment events, and therefore can be harder to attract to university careers events across the sector. However, many of our Schools, such as Journalism, maintain strong industry links and connect students with professionals in these fields.
“We aim to bring a diverse mix of employers to campus and create regular opportunities for students to meet organisations from many industries through course activities and year-round events –Careers Fairs are just one of the many ways we do this.”
This is the first of many articles in a series by Forge Press looking at your university. We’ll be looking into funding, staff opinion, student experiences and more.
