Bridge: a business game
On 17 May, Step Up students and students from the “Bread Doesn’t Grow on Trees” project (taking place in Kaluga) took part in Bridge, a business game.
Bridge: a business game
The students were divided into several teams and received an exercise. Each participant had a role to play for the next hour and a half. One team was supposed to be engineers, designing a bridge from paper and improvised tools.
Another team had to become an indigenous tribe with their own rules and etiquette. Most interesting was bringing the two teams together to complete a joint task.
The engineers had to explain to the tribe how to build a bridge according to their engineering design, but the tribe had their own customs that the engineers did not always understand. The task required patience, an ability to adequately explain the requirements, and tolerance of the tribe’s customs.
The teams all coped with this fun but intense task successfully and every participant was able to boost their communication and teamwork skills.
Many thanks to the hosts of the game, Alexei and Ekaterina Kurbatov. It is great that projects can lead to friendships and that we can visit one another. Thank you to Irina Ivkina for her students and colleagues; thank you to the Step Up staff and teachers who helped teams stay in their roles and move towards their intended goal.
This event was the final event for the “Prof” project this year. This year was very busy: we successfully completed training, seminars and masterclasses. For a long time to come, students will remember and discuss these interesting meetings with invited guests; all of the participants were positive about the format of the meeting.
What have we gained from the project?
Over the year, participants of the project have learned how to make individual presentations; how to communicate with a team and others; stress resistance; time management basics; CV writing; interview tips; and how to find vacancies.
The project helped bring our students closer to the most important skills: understanding how the world works; how to invest in order to achieve results; what type of professions there are; and what to pay attention to when making job choices.
The annual “Prof” course helped students to understand themselves, their talents, their interests and their aspirations. It revealed the support that exists from mentors and like-minded people – classmates.
Amongst other things, the project increased students’ motivation for employment – they wanted to find internships and jobs!
Results of the year
At the end of the year, we have attended and successfully completed eleven training sessions and five masterclasses. Sixteen “Prof” certificates of completion have been handed out, six interviews have been attended, and seven Step Up students have completed internships.
At this stage, the programme works with sixteen partners who are interested in helping our students find employment. This is just the beginning, as summer internships are yet to come!
We wish our students success, resilience, patience and a desire to not stop at their rich, remarkable internships!
Acknowledgements
The “Prof” project is implemented with the financial support of the charity foundation “Absolute Help”.
Over the year, the project was also supported by our partners: the Khleb Nasushnii café, professional branding agency “BrandYourTalent”, “Charity Shop”, the charity fund “A second breath”, the Globus supermarket network, the Morgan Lewis company, and Peredelkino Park.
Thank you to all of our colleagues for believing in us and for participating wholeheartedly, with a desire to pass on knowledge and experience.
Thank you to our guests, experts in their fields: photographer Yuri Chichkov; astrophysicist and popular scientist Sergei Popov; design engineer Viktor Bochkanov; neuropsychologist Olga Dyakova; and biomechanic Alexei Kotov. Thank you for such an inspiring meeting!
