"I was a Project Assistant within the Collaboration Services team, supporting the development and promotion of StrathApp, the University of Strathclyde’s mobile app for students and staff. My role involved supporting user engagement activities, gathering feedback, assisting in the planning and delivery of digital campaigns, and contributing to content creation across various channels. I also worked closely with developers, designers, and communications staff to help shape user-centred improvements to the app.

"I applied after finishing my degree, looking for an opportunity to get some real-life work experience, where I could give back, using my own University experience.  I had a strong interest in student engagement, and the role offered a rare opportunity to co-create with staff and other students on something that would have a tangible impact on the wider university community.  It felt like a natural next step in that stage of my life, where I managed to apply my academic knowledge into a real-life role.

"The role helped me develop a wide range of professional skills including:

• Digital communication - writing app notifications, campaigns, and social media
• User research and feedback analysis
• Content design using tools like Canva, Figma, and SharePoint
• Team collaboration in an Agile setting
• Stakeholder engagement and presenting ideas to senior staff
• Time management and prioritisation, especially during busy campaign periods such as Freshers

"It also gave me confidence in contributing ideas, working independently, and problem-solving in a professional environment.

"My experience as a Project Assistant laid the foundation for my career. It directly led to a Project Officer role within the same team, and eventually into a Digital Communications Officer position. It also gave me the opportunity to pursue further certifications, like becoming a Scrum Master and helped me build a portfolio of real, impactful work. That foundation played a huge role in securing my most recent move into the private tech sector, where I now work as a Project Manager at Forrit, a cloud-based CMS company. I would not have been able to get this role without the experience I gained at StrathApp.

"I’m now working as a Project Manager at Forrit, overseeing CMS projects for huge clients. My experience as a Project Assistant gave me early exposure to Agile methodologies, stakeholder communication, and digital product delivery - skills I now rely on every day. When I started the role, I lacked confidence. Like many students, I had faced multiple rejections for not having 'enough experience'. But through the student co-creation model, I was given the chance to build that experience in a supportive and empowering environment. I developed strong skills in stakeholder engagement, public speaking - including presenting at the Times Higher Digital Universities Conference, which was a milestone in my career. I also attended industry events where I learned how to build and sustain professional relationships. This role didn’t just prepare me for the world of work - it helped me believe in myself and my abilities. And the co-creation approach taught me to always put users at the heart of every decision, which continues to shape how I work today.

"The student co-creation model is one of the most impactful approaches I’ve experienced. It transforms students from passive users into active partners in shaping their university experience. It creates more relevant, inclusive services and creates a sense of ownership and pride. I truly believe this model should be adopted more widely across departments - not just in digital services, but in areas like curriculum design, student support, and campus development. When students are trusted as collaborators, the results are more meaningful, sustainable, and representative of the community they’re meant to serve."

"As a project assistant, I represented student perspectives in every step towards V4 of StrathApp. My initial responsibility was to review the features of Strath App, provide user feedback and present it to my immediate team (fellow project assistants, MADEU core team and board members. The highlight task undertaken by me was preparation for freshers fair 2024 at University of Strathclyde where me along with whole team interacted with approximately 800 students. We gathered user feedback from students right after launching V4. Being a Strathclyde student myself, this event helped me to gain more ideas from other students and present it to my whole team for continuous improvement. Another highlight task that I got as project assistant was to get an opportunity to contribute to Equality Impact Assessment report. While preparing this report with my team I got a chance to implement my academic learning. Overall, I enjoyed working in this post and learned lifelong professional skills. 

"Initially I was quite hesitant to apply for this post as the title was IT Project Assistant. I thought I am not from IT field so my skills may not be suitable for this post. But when I read the job description it was much more than just IT assistant and were looking for someone from diverse background academically and professionally. The job description also reflected Strathclyde ethics and value which I felt during my academic year at Strathclyde and throughout my tenure as project assistant in this project. I also came from a diverse student background, humanities and social sciences in academics plus South Asian and most importantly a user of the app. Thinking about all these, I immediately got excited to apply and contribute my diverse ideas in the team.

"Working as a project assistant gave a lifelong learning in project management. I learned transferrable IT skills, communication skills, report writing, agile methodology and digital content creation. To be more specific, in IT skills I used MS office packages, Teams, Outlook and many more. I learned to prepare important project reports such as project close-down reports by reviewing project initiation report, monthly highlight report and business case report. Similarly, learned to prepare Equality Impact Assessment report by handling sensitive information related to protected groups under university policy. Also, this experience enhanced my data analysis skills, specially preparing the students app feedback from Freshers Fair. These are the transferable skills I learned that will help me to build my future professional career. 

"For now, this experience has helped me to land in a lot of job interviews specifically in project management and administrative jobs. For long run, these skills will help me to maintain stakeholder communication, critical thinking while analysing and preparing project reports, work in diverse team and provide customer service. I am excited to use these skills soon which will be valuable for my new job. 

"I highly encourage other departments to apply this model where student and department cooperation is needed. This student co-creation model helps to hear straight from students and quickly implement their ideas to work towards a common goals. Most importantly, this opportunity will help to understand from both student and staff perspectives working to fix any concern and issues. This project is very meaningful where students are included to create a digital learning for themselves and by themselves. I still feel proud and happy to be part of this student co created project where I genuinely felt heard, included and respected in each step of my project journey."

"As a Project Assistant my primary role was to provide a unique student outlook on multiple aspects of the university however primarily the StrathApp. Throughout my time in the team we took an in depth look into the structure of communications across the university and created and proposed a communications matrix for the whole university to follow. We also as a team led a freshers stall where we gathered user acceptance data on the freshly released version 4 of the StrathApp. Individually I was given the opportunity to complete a course in flutter development to help firstly develop my own skills and also better understand the development of the app to create more informed decisions and with the foresight of getting to do future development work.

"The main experience I gained working as a project assistant were soft skills including social skills in the workplace and a lot of management skills whether it be personal time management, team time management or even finding the best times to meet with other teams. This is something that is unique to an industry environment where you get to see in real time decisions being made, especially since I was working through the time of release of version 4 of the StrathApp. I also gained hands on experience in seeing what an industry leading app looks like behind the scenes and being amazed by the complexity.

"I am now working full time as a developer within the team and my experience in the team has given me the opportunity to have a different outlook on the projects in general, still coming at each problem keeping the user at the forefront of my mind.
The student co creation model is not only beneficial but crucial to students nowadays. With an increasingly saturated job market having experience in industry is almost a bare minimum requirement for most roles and therefor giving students the opportunity to gain that experience is vital for their career success."

"To start with my role, I’ve been working with the StrathApp team mainly on accessibility and usability testing. My job has been to make sure the app actually works for all students, not just the typical user, and to highlight any barriers for visually impaired users like myself. I usually go through updates, try out new features, and give feedback on how easy it is to use with a screen reader or keyboard. I also take part in team meetings where I can speak up about what would make life easier for disabled students, whether that’s fixing a small bug or rethinking how something works.

"I first got involved after mentioning in a disability service meeting how a lot of uni platforms aren’t great for accessibility. The StrathApp team reached out and asked if I’d like to help test things out and give honest feedback. I kind of stumbled into it, but it’s turned into one of the most meaningful things I’ve done at Strathclyde.

"The experience has been brilliant for me. I’ve learned a lot about how digital products are built and tested, and what goes on behind the scenes when the uni tries to make things more inclusive. I’ve also developed a better understanding of user experience, and it’s been good to work with people from all sorts of backgrounds—tech, communications, student engagement, you name it.
I genuinely think this work will help a lot of students—not just those with disabilities. When you design with accessibility in mind, you end up making things simpler and more intuitive for everyone. It’s great to know my input will mean the next group of students won’t have to jump through the same hoops I did.

"For me personally, it’s been a confidence boost. I don’t usually see students like me involved in this kind of project, so being able to actually shape something at uni has been really rewarding. I feel like I’ve made a bit of a difference, and it’s made me want to do more in this area, both inside and outside of university.

"On the co-creation model, I honestly think it should be the standard. When you let students work side-by-side with staff, you get more creative ideas and pick up on things you’d otherwise miss. It’s much better than just sending out a survey or asking for feedback at the end. More unis should do it, especially for anything student-facing. It’s more work but absolutely worth it."