Jackie Campbell | Community Partnership

What’s kept you at Leeds Beckett University?

What I enjoy most about working here is teaching and working with our students. I’m interested in who they are, and creating teaching activities to engage with, and can feel excited about.

I’ve always been passionate about employability too. For part of my time here, I led on employability initiatives such as computing placements, and we even created a placements website many years ago with students. My doctorate in Education focused on how computing students navigate their journey into employment, which deepened my interest even further.

Helping students take their next steps is incredibly meaningful. Sometimes that next step is a clear job role, and sometimes it’s not. Employability is personal, and supporting large numbers of students through that can be challenging. That’s why every interaction matters. Any tutor or staff member might be the person who inspires a student’s next move. I try to build that into all my courses.

You won the Community Partnership award at the Awards for Excellence. How does your employability work feed into the community?

Alongside my academic work, I became a STEM Ambassador, which connected me with the STEM network. They suggested that our students could run a coding homework club in local primary schools. Before that, I’d been a school governor, and when the Headteacher mentioned STEM Week, they asked whether my students could run something computing-related.

So, as a STEM Ambassador, I helped set up a coding homework club in local primary schools, and it also generated paid work for our students. We now have around five or six students running these clubs. The feedback from pupils has been lovely, and the experience has been positive for everyone involved. Our students become part of the community while also giving back to it.

I’m also part of a local group called TheDataCrowd, which brings together around 200 employers working with data across the UK. One of my alumni suggested I join the committee, and now I co host events with them for Leeds Digital Festival alongside companies like Microsoft, the BBC, and Google. It’s been an amazing way to build contacts and introduce our students to inspirational people.

I’m part of the committee for the Ada Lovelace Colloquium, part of the British Computing Society (BCS) for Women, working with its founder, Hannah Dee, on micro behaviours experienced by women in tech. Hannah set up the Colloquium around 20 years ago and received an MBE for her work. This is a free, women only computing conference, and our team raises the funding so students can attend. Each year, a different university hosts, with keynote speakers and around 200 students take part. It’s great to promote these opportunities to our students. This year I arranged for Edafe Onerhime, an alumni recently named one of the top 20 most influential women in data, to be a keynote speaker.

What’s your standout achievement in real-world learning?

As a Course Director, the first thing I ask students to do in Week 1 is a team project presentation on a data story of their choice. I reassure them that not everyone has to present, I don’t want it to feel unbearable! The real intention is to help them form peer groups early on, so they have people who will message them if they miss class and friends to share the journey with. Building that sense of belonging from the start is important.

I also run a second year module called Digital Transformation, where students design an AI recruitment tool. The hidden agenda is that they reflect on their own CVs and job prospects while developing technical and transferable skills. Their CVs get ranked, and many students end up completely rewriting them, and getting interviews as a result. Some even design the recruitment tool for themselves to use later on.

What are your thoughts on employability skills for the next generation in the context of AI?

As the AI and Data Science Course Leader, I fully embrace AI. My students build AI tools, but before they build them, they need to use them, so they use AI tools in my modules too.

My real concern is teaching and learning. Are students missing out on the learning process? I recorded transcripts from a few workshops and analysed them to see how AI behaves as a teacher. In many ways, AI is charismatic, always available, and often brilliant. If I ask it to explain something as if I’m four years old, it does a great job. But life isn’t always about having someone be endlessly charismatic and agreeable.

My students also know that AI isn’t always correct. We tested this by giving the same dataset and identical prompt to an AI tool, and we all got different answers. The conversations we have in class about what they like, dislike, and are discovering, are a crucial part of the learning process as well.

AI’s impact on teaching and learning is huge, so in Week 1 every year, I spend an hour discussing what learning is, what teaching looks like, and how AI does and doesn’t fit into that. There’s also a social concern if young people talk to AI instead of each other.

What’s your hope for the future in this area of employability? Do you have any planned future activities?

My hope is that our students stay connected with industry and build enough of a portfolio, with confidence, to get the jobs they want. Starter jobs are great, but I want them to feel they have the agency to shape their own career paths.

Our employability team is incredible. They work so hard, and I’ve collaborated with them for years, including setting up summer internships. They’re passionate, dedicated, and always willing to help.

My role is to work closely with them, make sure my students know what’s available, and build awareness and agency into my teaching so students feel empowered to take those opportunities.

What would be your top tip for future students and graduates when it comes to improving their employability?

My top tip for students would be to get on with it! Think of employability as a ladder. If you’ve never worked before, start somewhere, volunteering is a great first step. It doesn’t have to relate to your course. If something looks interesting, you’ll enjoy it, you’ll be good at it, and opportunities will follow. Don’t choose a job just for the money or the company name.

And be brave. You don’t have to volunteer every week, one afternoon is enough to learn something. You don’t have to attend every meetup, just go to one and see what it’s like. It’s about being brave, trying things, and exploring. Go for it!