In my opinion, student societies are a cornerstone of university life and I wanted to share my personal experience of attending the Bright Network Society of the Year Awards, an event that celebrates the work that societies do.
Warwick Engineering Society, which I am an executive member of, was one of the three finalists for the Impact on Campus Award, sponsored by ICAEW.
The application itself was in the form of a two-minute video submission as well as written answers to a few select questions. We made sure that we were well-versed with the relevant criteria and consulted all executive team members to discuss the best approach. We wanted to submit a video that encompassed everything the society is about and had to somehow describe it in just two minutes. Everyone selected a few videos or photos that best represented our various activities and our Director of Video, Rishi, edited everything together into a trailer.
It was a real pleasure to find out that we were shortlisted and invited to the awards ceremony a few weeks later. Our first challenge was selecting five members to attend the ceremony, which proved to be surprisingly difficult as many of us had deadlines or exams that day.
The event itself was very enjoyable, everything was well organized, and we were excited for the opportunity to network with so many influential firms. For us, the highlight was getting to speak with members from other high calibre societies across the country. Meeting with and learning from other dedicated students was fantastic and I made several connections that have persisted since the event.
When the winner of our category was announced, I was nervous but satisfied that we had put in our best effort and could be proud of ourselves, regardless of the result. Our competitors were impressive, and each society had a strong case for winning the award. When it was announced that we had won, I was absolutely elated and couldn’t wait to share the news with the rest of the team as well as all our members and stakeholders.
The funding would help make our society more inclusive in the long run. We intend to put it to use to fund our Equality Forum, BORDERLESS, which will focus on issues of diversity in the Engineering industry and how they can be tackled. This will be a free event and we have already attracted interest from many large companies.
All in all, attending the Bright Network Society of the Year Awards was an outstanding experience and we would recommend any societies that are interested to apply next year, as we will be doing! Winning the award means so much to us and it is an amazing feeling to be recognised for the work we do to provide the best possible experience to our members.