As we approach the end of term, many of you will be looking forward to relaxing and a well earned break after this unusual year, and hopefully spending time with family and friends. We encourage you to recharge your batteries. But we also know that many of you may have more time on your hands than you would usually have during this break – and that some of you, for various reasons, may be staying with us in the university and surrounding residences in Manchester.
As a response, the Rise team have curated a special programme of activities and other opportunities, specifically targeted at this winter holiday period. These include opportunities to keep learning, enhance your career prospects and all the other great benefits that Rise brings for Manchester Met students. But we wanted to make sure that there were also opportunities for you to be flexible and creative – and to connect and collaborate with others.
If you’ve already joined Rise, get stuck in with the opportunities below. If not, kick-start a new way of engaging with your university experience and register now.
Learn Beyond Your Degree
Throughout this term, the Rise team have been busy setting up collaborations to produce a range of self-study courses on interdisciplinary themes. We have worked with expert practitioners and industry insiders from across the city region, with academics and your fellow students. The result is a catalogue of Rise Intensives on a range of themes, from Understanding Wellbeing to Language Learning, Enterprising Thinking and Creative Digital.
All our opportunities are flexible to be completed when it suits you – and for each you complete, you’ll earn 40 Rise points towards the opportunity to gain credits or transcript recognition.
Save the World with a Game
We have 200 free sets of Carbon City Zero, an innovative card game created by Manchester Met academic Paul Wake (Dept of English) and Sam Illingworth (University of Western Australia) packed and ready to send. Play and learn more about the steps and strategies needed to bring about the challenging targets to reach carbon neutrality. Earn 5 Rise points simply by playing a game and developing some new environmental commitments.
And go further – we have an exciting partnership with artist and activist Matteo Menapace, recent designer-in-residence at the Victoria and Albert Museum. His work supports people in understanding analogue and digital games mechanics – but also to use those mechanisms to engage people with important social issues. Matteo has created a DIY Games intensive encapsulating these principles especially for Manchester Met students! Follow it, and then create your own design to promote your own choice of social issue – the best (as judged by Matteo) will receive a £50 voucher, and expert mentorship… like Paul and Sam, maybe you’ll get your prototype funded through Kickstarter!
Booking must be made by the 11th December to allow for postage (though you can enter without claiming a delivery).
Step into Literature
Claim a free copy of The Sunday Times Number One Bestseller “How to Stop Time” by Matt Haig, as a winter reading challenge, and earn 15 points. Booking must be made by the 11th December to allow for postage.
Make … with Code
We’ve won a prestigious Office for Students grant to help us to engage students from all disciplines in Creative Digital, one of the fastest growing sectors in Greater Manchester. The Rise programme already offers a range of ways of upskilling in these areas, but we have a couple of particular challenges for you over the break!
In our first, we want to help any student grasp the basics of coding, and use that to create an artistic output; make anything fun, quirky, engaging, entertaining. To get you started we’ve the the first two of our ‘Make … with Code’ event series – a masterclass in which an industry expert will introduce complete novices to code with a focus on producing an output. Our first two, before Christmas, will set you up to create Music and Art, in the form of a procedurally generated snowflake (of course!)
Get Creative with Digital
In our second challenge, we’re running an open competition to showcase your creative and digital skills. Propose a solution to a social problem, create art or entertainment or engage others with the city and culture of Manchester. Every submission will earn 40 Rise points – and the best (as judged by our external panel) will win a £50 voucher.
You don’t need to be a tech expert to respond to these challenges – your creativity, thoughtfulness and subject specialism and broader talents are more important. Rise will support you with an array of self-study intensives, giving you a foundation in digital skills, or enterprise and creative thinking.
We even have some free goodies to support you – a set of free BBC Micro::Bits and Google Cardboard Headsets you can claim ahead of the break to use as the basis for your exploration. Booking must be made by the 11th December to allow for postage (though you can enter without claiming a delivery).