Oana Lazar was part of Southampton Hub whilst studying at the University of Southampton from 2017 to 2022. At our closure event Oana shared her reflections as a Hub alumni. You can read our CEO Sim’s speech from this event here.
My name is Oana Lazar, and Student Hubs was a central part of my life as an Electronic Engineering student at the University of Southampton.
I first got involved with Southampton’s branch of Student Hubs as a volunteer for “Invent Plus”, an outreach programme aiming to decrease the barriers into STEM – particularly those faced by minorities and disadvantaged schoolchildren – with a focus on getting more girls into engineering. This spoke to me on a very personal level, as at school I was usually one of the only girls in my maths, physics, and D&T resistant materials classes, and I wanted to change this for future generations.
After a year of volunteering, I wanted to increase my impact by taking on a leadership role as Invent Plus Co-ordinator, leading the programme before, during, and after the Covid-19 lockdowns. Student Hubs’ unwavering support through these genuinely unprecedented times (I assure you no Gantt chart of mine could have predicted this!) meant that the programme not only continued throughout the period, but it actually flourished. We secured a generous grant of £5,000 through the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) “Engineering Education Grant Scheme”, and also partnered with the University of Southampton’s “Dragonfly Days” programme which was being similarly impacted by Covid-19. Together, we managed to design three different practical activities, which we shipped to 300 Year 9 schoolgirls across the country – that’s 900 activity packs teaching young people about engineering!
In the final year of my Master’s degree, I stepped up as Southampton Hub President, building upon the leadership and management skills which I genuinely would not have had without the previous two years of volunteering.
Student Hubs has offered a completely unique experience, and I could not be more thankful that I was able to get involved with its programmes before the closure. I could genuinely go on for hours about what makes Student Hubs special, but I thought I’d focus on just three key points.
Firstly, I have found Student Hubs to be the best way of forming lasting connections at university. Student Hubs’ different branches connect university students to their local communities, encouraging us to step out of our “student bubble” and actively participate within the communities where we live. Student Hubs also fosters connections with our peers from other courses (again, encouraging us to step outside the bubble of our own course) and form lifelong friendships with students from different backgrounds. What makes these connections especially powerful is that they are with people who care about the same social issues, and whose understanding of these issues is enhanced through sharing personal experiences and volunteering journeys.
Student Hubs also stands out to me from other charities due to its unwavering focus on having a real impact on communities. It recognises that we cannot “fix” issues on a worldwide scale as individuals, so it encourages us to help where we can, in whichever way we can. More importantly, it teaches us how to recognise the genuine needs of a community, as these might not always be obvious from the outside. This allows for real impact on people in our communities in a tangible way. This forms a fantastic feedback loop in which we, as volunteers, also feel good about the change we’re making. I can assure you no amount of donating to a charity can compete with the excitement of seeing the way breadboards or electricity works “click” in a young person’s eyes. There’s nothing quite like seeing the impact you’re making materialise in front of you.
I cannot talk about Student Hubs without also mentioning its incredible impact on improving students’ employability skills. You’re probably sick of hearing the phrase “soft skills”, as every opportunity mentions it can improve them, but Student Hubs truly takes this to the next level. The programmes offer opportunities that someone would never have access to in a professional role, at least until they’d gained at least several years of experience. Examples from my own time volunteering include planning projects with a budget of several thousand pounds, managing a team of dozens of volunteers, and impacting literally hundreds of people across the country. On top of this, Student Hubs makes it fun, encouraging students to continue taking part in social action and volunteering – as a full-time Embedded Software Engineer, it is simply a part of my life now.
There may be many similar programmes out there with similar opportunities and similar benefits, but what makes Student Hubs truly special is the staff. They find and organise the opportunities, supporting administrative tasks which would have probably taken up all the volunteers’ available time otherwise. Student Hubs allows student leaders to focus on what truly matters.