How to take part in GradEX

GradEX 25th Anniversary 

GradEX holds significant importance for our students here at University of Staffordshire. Not only does it serve as a platform to showcase your hard work, but it also plays a vital role in helping you establish crucial connections within the industry. These connections often lead to real job offers and career opportunities.

GradEX is held in a hybrid format, both online via uploading your final year project onto the portal and on-campus as a judged exhibition. You can take part in both or either of these opportunities.

Information about the online event

The Digital GradEX online portal  provides you with an opportunity to exhibit your final year projects to a global audience. This will remain open throughout summer. Through this portal, students can engage with industry experts and potential employers, fostering networking opportunities that extend far and wide. PLEASE NOTE THIS IS NOW CLOSED FOR ENTRIES AND WILL GO LIVE ON FRIDAY 31ST MAY.

Information about the on-campus event

The on-campus showcase sees industry professionals and potential employers joining us on campus to judge and discuss your projects with you. Following the exhibition, we'll host a prize-giving ceremony and a celebratory gathering open to you, your families, academics, and employer judges. It's an opportunity for everyone to come together, share achievements, and celebrate.

How to take part in Digital GradEX

Register

Your first step is to visit the GradEX entry portal and register. To do this you will need your student number.  This is not your student ID, it is eight digits long and is numbers only.

Register for GradEx

 

Submit your entry

Once registered you will be able to access the project form to enter details of your final year project. This should be a single project that sums up your final year's work. If this is a joint project, done with other students, each member of the group will need to submit their own individual project entry through Digital GradEX23.

The form contains both required information, and optional fields which should allow you to add your project in the most appropriate format for the work you would like to present.  Please read the following guide carefully.

Please select the closest subject area when asked for the course you are studying. Not all course titles are listed.

Guidance for submitting your entry

  1. Lead image – Your project must contain one 'lead image' that must be 1000x1000px.  This will be the image that shows alongside your project listing on the portal and needs to represent your project.
    If you don't have pictures of your actual project, it's very important to make sure that you only use images that you own/ have the right to use. If you need a royalty free image please visit Pixabay.
  2. Additional images – You have the option to add up to four supplementary images of your project, or images that represent it.
    Each image needs to be less than 2MB in size, the uploading tool will allow you to crop your image if the dimensions are larger than 2000x2000 pixels. Each picture should have a caption (max 30 characters) entered to describe them.
    Please note that any images uploaded that have a transparent background will show with black filling in the transparent part, so please give them a non-transparent background before uploading.
  3. A title for your project – This should be a maximum 75 characters and sum up your project.
  4. The subject of the course you are studying - please choose the closest if your exact course is not listed. You will also have to select a category for your project. Some course subjects will have just one category, others may have more than one. If there is more than one, please select whichever you feel is the most appropriate one for your final year project.
  5. Optional: YouTube video – For those studying visual courses, where the best way to showcase your work is in video format, you can add a YouTube video to be displayed. Any video content must be uploaded to YouTube and cannot be added in any other format. Please note that full urls are required.
  6. Optional: document upload – If your final year project is a dissertation/presentation/essay/report then you can upload a document to your project. Any documents uploaded must be in Word/PowerPoint/PDF format, and can be no larger than 3MB. Please make sure your project title is the file name.
  7. 100 words about you and your project – It's up to you how many words you use for each, but we recommend a 50/50 split between you and your project.
  8. Excerpt – A short sentence (30 words max) that will appear on the project category page to indicate what your project is about and encourage visitors to view your project in more detail.
  9. Additional links – you can add up to four additional links to your project, this can be your LinkedIn profile, a website, or online portfolio etc.
  10. Up to four keywords – choose whichever keywords best describe your project or key skills. These keywords won't be visible online, but they will help people find you if they're searching for a specific skill or project detail on the portal.
  11. Eligibility to work in the UK– Please check the box if you are eligible to work in the UK, this is to help employers identify potential job candidates.
  12. Have you secured a job/further study after your degree – If you select no, then the next two fields regarding what sort of employment you're looking for, and where, will be shown on your project page.
  13. What type of role are you seeking – Please give details about what sort of job you would like, what specialities you are interested in, particular skills you might have, and what industries you are focusing on etc.
  14. What location/s are you considering for your work – List areas that you would be willing to work in, try not to be too limited as this may reduce the opportunities you would be suitable for and may be contacted about.
  15. Save – When you first save your entry it will be saved in a draft version.  You will then have the opportunity to edit as many times as you like until you're happy.  At that point, you will do a final submit to the GradEX Team who will review your project and publish to the website's project galleryYour project will not appear in our projects gallery until you have submitted it to the final approval stage and one of our staff has reviewed and published it.
  16. Final publication to the website – You will receive a confirmation email letting you know when your project has been approved.  The team will then review and approve all projects to the website, ahead of the portal being publicised to employers and industry experts, so your project can be approved at any time.

Contact us

If you have any queries don't hesitate to contact the GradEX team.

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