{"id":652,"date":"2026-09-28T11:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T10:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/undergraduate-scholarships-and-bursaries\/?p=652"},"modified":"2026-09-22T13:26:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T12:26:49","slug":"scholar-insights-solving-real-world-challenges-year-3-of-the-gsp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/undergraduate-scholarships-and-bursaries\/2026\/09\/28\/scholar-insights-solving-real-world-challenges-year-3-of-the-gsp\/","title":{"rendered":"Scholar Insights: Solving Real-World Challenges, Year 3 of the GSP"},"content":{"rendered":"

My third year on the Gold Scholarship Programme was one of the most engaging years so far. It came with an exciting change from previous years as we were introduced to a charity consultation project that would span the duration of our third-year programme. Whilst previous years focused on broader workshops, the third year, with a much smaller cohort, was centred around one key theme: communicating with impact.<\/p>\n

Our welcome day set the tone for the year with a great seminar by a company called Laughology on the use of humour in presentations. This is also when we first met our new peer groups and it was perfect for breaking the ice. We discussed our key strengths and areas for improvement as individuals and how these would influence our dynamic as a team. A key foundation for the project ahead.<\/p>\n

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The consultation project was the true core of the year, where we were handed a brief that reflected real-world consultation briefs we could expect to receive in our careers. Working in a highly diverse, multidisciplinary team to solve this was very insightful. Rather than feeling overwhelmed by the scope of the brief, we learned from each other\u2019s disciplines and leaned into our strengths and weaknesses. For example, one member had experience with work breakdown structures. This framework allowed us to divide the tasks effectively and prepare for the final pitch. Learning to collaborate with different working styles from disciplines such as pharmacology expanded my own project management toolkit in ways coursework never did.<\/p>\n

The culmination of this section of the programme was pitching our final ideas to a panel of industry professionals. Standing up to deliver our group presentation was an exciting challenge, and the addition of a Q&A session added to the test. Justifying our ideas and fielding questions from the panel pushed us to think on our feet and proved how deeply we understood the brief. It meant dressing professionally for the occasion and putting our best selves forward to deliver a succinct pitch alongside our peers.<\/p>\n

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This day also ended with a celebratory networking event where we chatted with the panel and a wider Gold Scholarship network, learning about their stories and continuing to reflect on our own. This was a really nice experience and a great opportunity to get to know our peers better, as well as learning about the lives of others from similar and contrasting backgrounds. These types of events are always a chance to learn about what\u2019s going on elsewhere at the university, and for me, I met some people who I continue to talk to even now.<\/p>\n

Our final keynote session of the year gave our cohort the opportunity to reflect, and the most valuable lesson I took away came directly from the panel\u2019s feedback on our pitch. They explained the importance of clearly demonstrating the challenge before detailing the solution. It is incredibly easy to get caught up in an exciting idea, but grounding it in the initial problem demonstrates clear focus and purpose to the audience. In this final session we were given an opportunity to learn and reflect on the soft skills that we had developed during this programme and why they would be valuable assets moving forward in our careers. Reflecting as a group, we also learnt how to deliver feedback to our peers in a respectful and constructive way, providing opportunities for growth for everyone.<\/p>\n

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For students entering the third year of the Gold Scholarship Programme, the consultation project is a great opportunity to lean into the diverse perspectives of your peer group, embrace new working styles, and gain invaluable experience. The entire year is an opportunity to develop different teamworking styles, showcase your ideas to a panel and receive feedback that you can carry forward with you for your next projects and presentations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My third year on the Gold Scholarship Programme was one of the most engaging years so far. It came with an exciting change from previous years as we were introduced to a charity consultation project that would span the duration...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,5,24,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gold-community","category-gold-events","category-gold-scholarship-programme","category-skills-development"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/undergraduate-scholarships-and-bursaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/undergraduate-scholarships-and-bursaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/undergraduate-scholarships-and-bursaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/undergraduate-scholarships-and-bursaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/undergraduate-scholarships-and-bursaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/undergraduate-scholarships-and-bursaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/undergraduate-scholarships-and-bursaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/undergraduate-scholarships-and-bursaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/undergraduate-scholarships-and-bursaries\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}