My Digital Coach Experience: Ellie

Posted on: 9 October 2023 by Richard Finch in Student experiences

Ellie is one of our team of new Digital Coaches - University of Liverpool students who have been trained in the latest digital skills and will be delivering sessions for students this semester.

My name is Ellie, I’m currently a third year Communications and Media student, and this year I was lucky enough to be selected as one of the University’s ‘Digital Coaches’!

In short, as a Digital Coach, I was trained over a period of 8 weeks during the summer in a range of digital skills - from the infamous AI tool ChatGPT, to the optimisation of Social Media for business use.

I was not alone in this; I was joined by 12 other students from the University, all hailing from a wide variety of degree backgrounds. Courses such as History, Biochemistry, and Computer Science, to name a few. However, as well as being University of Liverpool students, there was another common factor that bound us all - that being we were all commuter students living within the Liverpool City Region.

This in itself was a really influential factor in terms of why I decided to apply for the opportunity. As a commuter student, and with my first year of Uni being partially interrupted by COVID, I felt as though I hadn’t developed as many connections and friendships with fellow students as I had hoped to prior to starting my degree. As for the Digital Accelerator programme, this was a fantastic opportunity for myself and other commuters to come together and work not only on our digital skills, but on our interpersonal ones, too. I am glad to say that I have gained numerous valuable friendships along my journey.

In today’s era of modern tech and digital tools, having a digitally refined skillset under your belt is imperative. The Digital Accelerator programme opened my eyes to a range of digital tools and has helped immensely not just with my own digital skillset, but with my confidence also. If you would have told me a year ago that I’d be delivering a coaching session to 20+ students, I would have probably laughed in your face, and then gone to hide in a corner. The programme really got me out of my comfort zone, and for that I’m extremely grateful. Even if I’m still an introverted bookworm at heart.

One of my aims as a Digital Coach is to aid students in upskilling themselves so that they may have a better chance at getting into a career they are seeking, but to also widen their options in terms of breaking into a sector that they may have never considered before. One key detail about my role as a Digital Coach is that I was able to choose what particular ‘Digital Skills Session’ I wanted to develop and eventually deliver. This to me was really appealing, as the passion I already had for my particular topic only accelerated my desire to share my knowledge with other students.

My session delves into the realm of Social Media Marketing - with a focus on utilising Instagram. Some of the other sessions offered by my fellow coaches include: using ChatGPT as a Study Tool, How to Develop a Creative CV, Intro to Graphic Design, Utilising Social Media Analytics, and SEO for e-commerce.

There really are no bounds in terms of what skills sessions are on offer, so if you are looking to develop a new skill that you can add to your CV, I’d highly recommend you to attend our Digital Skills Sessions! Psst - you’ll also gain an additional HEAR accreditation if you attend any 7 of the sessions available. Sounds like a win to me!

Click here to view the Digital Skills sessions and book your place.