Myia Matassoni-Sarr, CREME

"Our volunteering project was tasked to help CREME (the Centre for Research in Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship) develop a social media strategy so they could reach out to their non-academic audiences, namely business owners and entrepreneurs as well community organisations.

Myia Matassoni-Sarr

“This opportunity has proven very helpful when applying to graduate internships and programmes because it helps me showcase a range of skills, such as negotiating, teamwork and business awareness.”

"The structure of the volunteering project meant we were free in choosing what to do. CREME had a very vague and open idea of what we could do. However, Alison stressed early on that we needed to tell them we were not here to run their organisations but to act as consultants. Therefore, we had to negotiate what we had to do and make sure it was doable in the limited time we had. This helped me negotiate what we had to do and to influence the course of the project, which is an opportunity you rarely come across at university or in internships. What we planned did not always go as scheduled and involved reshuffling and it taught me what to expect from the workplace.

"Also, the team I had to work with was diverse in that we all came from different professional and cultural backgrounds. Working with Jun, an international student, was very interesting because he had a different perspective and expectations. It was beneficial because it taught me how to manage language barriers that come with this.

"Volunteering with CREME made me realise that I had issues expressing myself. It was early on during the project when we had to schedule a meeting. I felt it was unnecessary because we hadn’t achieved much of the project and I was very busy with academically, being in third year. Instead of expressing my annoyance and my unavailability, I wrote an email to my colleague which I immediately regretted sending because it was so passive aggressive. I knew that I hated confrontation and had issues with expressing myself in person, but this small event made me realise how much of any issue that could be later when I integrate the work place. This episode made more self-aware and more willing to express myself.

"The best thing about the project is that it gave me the incentive to help me manage my time efficiently, instead of resorting to do things last minute. Since I had so many things to balance and so many things at stake, I had to do tackle things head on. This is a habit that I am actively trying to develop as of now and which has benefited me in my personal and academic life. Even though it was very hard at times to balance this project with the work expected in final year, I am grateful it pushed me to organise myself the way I always wanted to.

"Even though our contribution was modest, it makes me proud to know that we were able to help CREME in their efforts to help BME and migrant entrepreneurs flourish in Birmingham.

"This opportunity has proven very helpful when applying to graduate internships and programmes because it helps me showcase a range of skills, such as negotiating, teamwork and business awareness."