Global Professional Award
The Global Professional Award is a program you, as a Huddersfield student, can participate in alongside your undergraduate degree*. It’s designed to arm you with valuable skills and attributes that we know employers are looking for. The aim is to get you ready for life in employment, by not only enhancing your ability to showcase your work ethic and create your own opportunities but teaching you valuable ways to protect your wellbeing and deepen your understanding of global and social issues.
The skills you can hope to develop through the Global Professional Award (GPA) include:
- Employability & Enterprise: helping you to understand what employers want in graduates and leaders, and giving you the opportunity to develop these skills and capabilities.
- Wellbeing: providing you with the opportunity to develop tools that will contribute to your physical and mental health at university and as a graduate.
- Global and Social Awareness: helping you to understand and navigate the key social and political issues that will impact you as students and graduates.
Completing the Award
Completing the Award will support you to transform into a highly employable graduate who is:
- Self-motivated
- Enterprising
- Resilient
- Able to collaborate with others
- A confident leader
- Globally and socially aware
By completing the Global Professional Award, you’ll receive a GPA certificate from the University of Huddersfield. This award, alongside the specialist subject skills and knowledge you gain as part of your degree, could help to set you apart from other graduates.
Giving students access to the Global Professional Award is one of the reasons the University won ‘Best University Employability Strategy’ award at the National Graduate Recruitment Awards 2021.
What our students say
“It shows employers that you are high skilled in what you do in the Management and Leadership skills.”
Mohammed Hasnat
Pharmacology Graduate
“The qualification has enabled me to secure three part-time jobs while I was at university and, beyond graduation, it’s allowed me to start my own business and be able to have the confidence when I enrolled onto my barrister training course.”
Rukshar Jahangir
Law with Criminology Graduate
“Reflective practice, time management skills, communication, leadership, all will help us in the workplace.”
Amy Lees
Psychology with Counselling Graduate
“It adds credibility to the experience on my CV and it’s great advertising in interviews.”
Laura Ibbotson
Computer Science with Cyber Security Graduate
“It’s really great to put on your CV, it’s really good to really boost up who you are as a person and what you can offer to employers.”
Jess Fort
Sociology & Criminology Graduate
How do I get the Award?
We make it as simple as possible. You’ll complete the Award through online sessions and activities. This will take approximately 1 hour per week, so you’ll still have plenty of time to focus on your degree and your social life.
As part of the Award, you’ll connect with lots of other students and new experiences, which will help you develop personally and professionally. You’ll be supported to complete the Award by staff who are specialists in the three areas of Employability & Enterprise, Wellbeing and Global & Social Awareness.
*full-time, undergraduate first degrees with a minimum duration of three years. This does not include postgraduate, foundation, top-up, accelerated or apprenticeship degrees.
Jenny Mengistu
Jenny is a 3rd Year student studying Law (LLB)
“The GPA program was brilliant. Each year has helped me develop my professional persona and encouraged me to build my confidence, participating and volunteering with groups I wouldn’t have dreamt of in my first year. It has given me access to a professional community where I have had the opportunity to meet other students from all walks of life, learn from them and impart my own learnings.”
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