In March students from our secondary school programme visited global law firm DLA Piper and Ernst & Young, one of the largest professional service firms in the world. The visits were part of Mosaic’s World of Work which aims to raise the aspirations of students by exposing them to the real workplace.

The students, from Belle Vue girls school in Bradford, split into 2 groups for their visits. One group of students visited Ernst & Young on 20th March and the other group visited DLA Piper on 21st March.

Speaking of this unique approach to the visits, Mosaic Regional Manager for Yorkshire Nabila Ayub said: “The beauty of splitting the students into 2 groups, each visiting a very different workplace, is that they could share so much of their experiences with one another. The students said after the visits that they compared what they had learnt and discussed how each workplace was different and what similarities existed. This is definitely an approach we’d take again as it promoted so much discussion after the visits were over.”

Each group were given tours of the office premises and had access to a variety of staff in a wide variety of positions in each organisation. At DLA Piper, the students had Q&A sessions with Senior Partners, Associates and Trainees that gave them 360° insight into the reality of working life across the organisation. When sharing experiences after the event, the students from DLA Piper said how useful it had been to hear from everyone from Trainees, just beginning their career journey to Senior Partners, with years of expertise and insight to share.

Shakeel Nazir, IT specialist at DLA Piper and Mosaic’s Hero of the Month in November 2012, commented: “It was great to see the students feeling very inspired after their visits. Having the opportunity to see first-hand how large organisations operate really opened their eyes to the working world. Hopefully they go away with the belief one day a position in firms like these is achievable.”

Students at Ernst & Young took part in a quiz where they explored a wide range of issues from the accountancy and financial industry that they were able to share with their fellow students who visited law firm DLA Piper. Both sets of students received goody bags and left their World of Work visits buzzing with what they had seen and heard.

Nabila Ayub added: “We couldn’t do our World of Work visits without the continued support of organisations like DLA Piper and Ernst & Young. We rely on the companies that support us and the mentors who spend so much of their time with the students, preparing them to really get the most out of these unique visits to such high profile companies.”

Find out more about our secondary school mentoring programme.