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Henley Business School, University of Reading

I'm Kritika and I'm the Alumni Chapter Head based out of India, and I was I graduated in 2019 from Henley Business School with a Master's in Entrepreneurship. To talk a little bit about the network that we have for Henley Business School.

We have some of the most successful business leaders where we have some of them who have gone to start several restaurants and so on within the UK itself and around the world. Our alumni network is 80,000 strong all around the world. And we have over 7,000 students joining us every year and this is from over 160 countries. We have a special programme, which is known as the Henley Student Mentoring Programme, where the current students can get benefits from the alumni, where they are paired up with someone who they want to work under or is interested in the same kind of field, where they can discuss their career goals, their career paths, what they like to do in the future, or, you know, sort of collaborate with them in a way about their future plans. And this really gets constructive feedback on their ideas if they have a project in mind, which they'd want to go ahead and at the same time, they also get valuable input from the several years in the industry, which the alumni have spent. So this not only helps the current students in expanding their knowledge base by the alumni support that's given to them, but also and also from the industry, which they'd like to join. And this sort of helps them in not just gaining insights, but also expanding their professional network while they study.

So talking just about the alumni in the country itself, we have over 750 Henley alumni in India, based in cities like Delhi, Mumbai Chennai and Bangalore. Like I personally, I'm from Bangalore, but it's also from a wide range of industries  like banks, software companies. And so on, like we have people from JP Morgan, Microsoft, EIL, Indian oil and so on. To share a little about my personal experience as a student at Henley Business school, I'd like to highlight something called the Red Award Employability Skills Certificate, which is an employability certificate, which is given to students and this is in addition to your degree certificate. So to basically get the certificate, the student has to go above and beyond the academics where they have to volunteer for a certain number of hours, where they have to do any kind of work for a certain number of hours and attend certain training sessions, which help in their not only just professional development, but also personal development. And these sessions have helped me personally, a lot. And you also have something called the Life Tools Programme, which also adds to the Red Award Employability Programme. And this sort of adds to your CV in a way and highlights the skills that employers are looking for.

The top left hand corner is from a trip to Moscow. It was a good collaboration with a University from Moscow. The students had some startups and we would give them the give them our inputs. We're still in touch with them. So it's like, you know, you're not just making friends internationally from the UK, but also friends internationally beyond borders. The top right picture that you see is from one of our consultancy sessions in London. This was in consultation with an entrepreneur who is currently working on a project, and we give her input as to how she could expand her business or make changes to her business, which would sort of get her more clients and get her more business.

Bottom left picture that you see is from a trip to Poland. This was a consultancy trip where we consulted established entrepreneurs in Poland. So we got an exposure to how different people from around the world have their thought process in terms of startups. So it was not just London, but also in Russia and Poland. So it was a good mix of people from different parts of the world and different kinds of experiences in different industries.

We have over 150 clubs and societies. And personally, I was a part of the Entrepreneurship Society. I was a part of the Business Society. I was also a part of the, you know, the local Indian society because this helped me in meeting friends from the same country where, you know, if you want to eat the same kind of food or go to the same kind of restaurant, you could just meet them and hang out with them. And there are also people from different parts of the world, but who are Indian. So it was a good blend of culture.

There was also something called the International Society where you can meet people of the same interests but from different countries. So like the number of societies that we have is 150. But if you think that as a society, which you can create your own society do, so you have an option of doing that. There are several Job Fairs that happen from time to time. When when I was a student and during the Freshers Week, we had a carnival. So it was like a mini fair on campus. You would have networking sessions with several industry leaders, who would come and share their insights and talk to us about what's currently happening in the industry. So apart from this, soon after the session was over, the floor was open for networking and we could go and speak to them. And it would be a one-on-one conversation where you would get more insights. A lot of times what happened was the people would have such great conversations that I personally know a few of them who ended up getting part time jobs with these speakers, who had come for these events.

The Careers Team had conducted like a series of events and at the end of these sessions, they would keep tally of who was answering how many questions and it was like a quiz session. At the end of the series, whoever had the maximum number of points, there was a finale quiz and whoever won the finale quiz, we had like three different kinds of awards for it. So the first was to dine with the CEO of Hyundai, and so, that's my team dining with the CEO of Hyundai, Mr Tony. That's something I absolutely enjoyed doing. And the two hour conversation with Mr Tony is something I still remember. It's not every day you get to dine with a CEO. The timetable was such where I could even attend these events. So we would generally have classes for four days a week and one of the days was kept for group meetings and group sessions and extracurricular activities. So it was a good mix where I could even attend the events and at the same time focus on my academics.

Reading is like an absolutely beautiful little town. And it's as a campus based University. So it's something like you have all facilities on campus, including a supermarket, a bank and I lived on campus, so, I didn't really have to step out of campus unless it was absolutely necessary. So when you're living in Redding, you're sort of enjoying the benefits of staying very close to London, but still not having to pay the rent, of London. So that's something I personally liked a lot too. So as an international student, I chose to stay on campus because, you know, easy access to the University as such. It was a quick walk to classes and at the same time, there were several events that were happening from time to time, which would keep me entertained. So we had events like Origami, pumpkin carving, movie nights, yoga, and this was spread throughout the week. So there was not a single time where we wouldn't have events like these.

We have facilities for the Wellbeing toolkit, for example, and support for students. We have councillors available on campus, where the students can book appointments and have sessions with them and we have medical help available on campus and this is, again, easily accessible to the students as and when required. We have academic tutors and also tutors which are assigned to every student. So if you're ever facing any kind of issues, you can always approach your personal tutor and get help from them.

So that's it from my end really. So if you have any questions or you want to know something about my experience or anything about the University, I'd be more than happy to answer them.