Professional and Community Engagement
Qualifications
Overview
Professional and Community Engagement (PACE) studies is an ideal complement to your core subject. Training in this area will help you to develop key skills in community engagement, professional enterprise, cultural competence, and innovation. These skills will be honed through relevant work experience, projects, and internships for those undertaking this minor.
Working jointly on projects with businesses and community organisations, PACE students learn to provide productive outcomes, develop strategies, enhance their communication skills, and change communities in the process.
- UC has led the way in Australasia through its popular Arts Internships PACE programme. As a unique part of the Arts experience at UC, students have completed over 300 internship projects in recent years, ranging from media strategy development, event organisation, marketing, and fundraising, to health advocacy, environmental advice, and policy analysis.
- Nearby in the re-emerging Ōtautahi Christchurch central business district, UC Arts students are able to get involved in public art, pop-up galleries, urban transformation projects, community building events, well-being activities and more. Nowhere else in Aotearoa New Zealand are students getting so much exposure to social innovation and entrepreneurship, the chance to reshape a city, and create meaningful and personalised environments that make a difference to the communities in which they live.
Prior study in English is helpful, or in media studies or history at school – but the best background is simply an interest in the cultures, stories, and ideas that shape workplaces. Some work experience either past or current is also an advantage.
UC offers a a minor in Professional and Community Engagement as part of the Bachelor of Arts and the Bachelor of Commerce.
100-level courses
The 100-level course PACE 195 Professional and Community Engagement: Theory and Practice introduces students to the questions of theory and practice in academic studies and develops the necessary interpersonal and professional skills for employment.
200-level and beyond
At 200-level, all students participate in an internship project with a business or community organisation. This course enables students to work on a professional or community-based project, supported by personal reflection on the project and academic theories of community engagement. It allows students to develop their academic and professional communication skills in an external environment.
As a graduate of Professional and Community Engagement studies, you will be uniquely trained in key transferable skills, and will have a thorough understanding of how your major subject has prepared you to work with local and international communities.
PACE students will have an edge over other graduates, as they will have had the chance to prove their communication, creativity, problem solving, and critical thinking skills in real-world scenarios.
Find out more about what you can do with a degree from UC.
Contact us
College of Arts | Te Rāngai Toi Tangata
Phone +64 3 369 4368
Email artsinternships@canterbury.ac.nz
Location
Karl Popper building, Room 417 – see campus maps
Postal address
College of Arts | Te Rāngai Toi Tangata
University of Canterbury | Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch 8140
New Zealand
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