Mari Hauge Blog
Mari Hauge is Vice-President of the Social and Public Policy Society and shares her experience of organising their recent “Futures in Policy” event.
Organising a society speaker event
Last year I attended an event called “Women in Policy” with the Social and Public Policy Society, so when I joined the committee this year, we were all very excited to organise a similar event, one where students had the opportunity to hear about different careers in policy from people at different stages of their career. Our goal with the event was to inspire students and to give them a broader understanding of what work can be done within policy. Through help from the SPS Student Experience Forum (STEF), the School of Social and Political Sciences and the GUU, we were able to host a very successful event in October 2023.
It was important for us to find a variety of speakers who represented the vast range career paths, offering insight into their career journeys and we found three great speakers: Mark Wong, a senior lecturer at the University; Lou Chauvin, a recent SPP graduate who now works with the Young Women Movement; and Angela Millar who had previously worked as a journalist prior to beginning her career at Turning Point Scotland.
Angela introduced us to her work at Turning Point Scotland, a critical organisation which provides social care services for people going through challenging situations. Angela works as a policy officer for Turning Point, and discussed how she works to change policy at a local and national level to tackle laws and policies that negatively impact people.
Lou talked about her job as a Collective Voice and Action Coordinator at the Young Women’s Movement, which is Scotland’s national organisation for young women’s feminist leadership and gender equality. She talked about her work to amplify young women's voices through coordinating system-changing companies and programmes.
Mark is a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Research Methods at the University and the Deputy Head of Urban Studies. He talked about research in racial justice and AI systems and how he advised the Scottish government on anti-racism. It was incredibly interesting to hear about the impact research and academia can have on policy through advising governments and policymakers.
Coming from such different personal and academic backgrounds it was inspiring and grounding to have some insight into what are often such non-linear paths. As students it can be quite unnerving wondering what a life after university might look like and worrying if you’re doing everything right. Our speakers provided some real perspective into the natural stress of this time, but at the same time instilled confidence that a career in policy – whatever that might look like for you – is rewarding, diverse and most of all exciting!
A moment I personally found particularly inspiring was when Angela talked about her journey from working in journalism to working in policy because she wanted to make a difference and help people. Her career in journalism highlighted injustices she wanted to change, so she sought out a new job where she could make changes and help people. This is something I would like to achieve in my policy career after university, and it was a main reason why I wanted to study social and public policy.
In exploring Lou’s experience navigating her own career ladder after university, it was reassuring to hear that she was able to enter a policy field which aligned with her personal interests right after uni. I think many students worry about their job opportunities when they finish their degree, so I think this was a moment which both reassured and instilled confidence in all of us.
Looking towards Mark’s career in AI with the Scottish Government, it was also clear that the skills and interests needed for entering the policy field extend far beyond just sociological thinking. In his work, Mark has been able to combine front-facing technology with theoretical academic thinking to explore real change and culture across Scotland. I think that by looking at all of these different careers we were able to display the broad possibilities of careers for all of us as students, regardless of our distinct academic backgrounds.
It was reassuring to hear that Angela had worked in various fields before she ended up in her current policy job. I thought this was very interesting because it highlighted that we don’t necessarily need to find our dream job right away. The jobs we have along the way can give us some new perspectives and skills that will be very useful no matter what role we end up in. I also loved how passionate all of the speakers were about their jobs.
My reflections on the event are overwhelmingly positive. I am so proud of what we were able to achieve. The speakers provided such insight, wisdom and experience, and I felt like
I learned a lot through planning this kind of event. Whether you want to organise a speaker event or take place as an audience member, I encourage you to attend as many of these types of events as possible and guarantee that even if it’s not what you go in expecting to hear you will take away some valuable experience from speakers!
We had a great turnout for the event and have received very positive feedback and I am already very excited to plan more events with the Social and Public Policy Society in the future!
I would like to end this blog by saying thank you to all the people who helped with this event. Firstly, thank you to the speakers who took time out of their day to share their interesting experiences with us, and thank you to everyone who attended. Thank you to STEF for helping to fund the event. Without you, we would not have been able to hire the venue and have the drinks reception afterwards, which allowed the students to speak more informally to the speakers and ask them more specific questions about the student's interests. The GUU were a great help to us on he night too. Thank you to Graeme Young and the Student Experience team at the School of Social and Political Science for helping us and giving us advice.
Finally, a big thank you to Aileen Stewart, the President of our society, who did an amazing job planning and organising this event and delegating work. The event would not have been as successful as it was without her.