Student experience of GIG Economy and our fellow project Giggin' Policy ! Mattia Troiano's activities and reflections on the projects:
Since the beginning of October, I joined the GIGGIN’POLICY project at the ROC Friese Poort Team with the key purpose of engaging students across the different departments of the school on the topic of the Gig Economy and the GIGGIN’POLICY project itself.
Before developing the workshop format and its activities, I have indeed set the learning objectives for this so to meet both the student engagement purpose and the key outputs of the project. The first module of what we in Friese Poort define as GIGGIN’POLICY Guest Workshop equip students with a first introductory knowledge-kit on the topic of the Gig Economy. Parallelly, it seeks to stimulate students’ critical thinking on the phenomenon and how this might affect their professional career path both in the long- and short-run.
The activities and content proposed in the workshop have emerged from multiple inspirational and information sources – among which both personal training and knowledge, and the materials produced in the companion Erasmus+ project Entering the GIG Economy were indeed crucial. From this latter, great inputs on content fruition and information dissemination mechanisms have been taken and customised so to fit the target audience and learning objectives of the Giggin’Policy one. During the sessions, after completing a test-your-knowledge Kahoot quiz that lays the foundations for the topic, students are asked to brainstorm on the different Giggin jobs they are aware of and go beyond by considering relevant possible Giggin’Jobs specific for their field of study and ambitions. In the same brainstorm format, they also try to identify both advantages and disadvantages they see in the Gig Economy as being especially freelancers or business owners – categories most likely they will be joining this type of atypical labour market.
The workshop series has already reached more than 60 students in the school, and I am personally committed to keep improving the impact reach dimension of this initiative. On a personal level, running the workshops is incredibly exciting and rewarding. Students are keen on getting to know more on the project and the topic more in general and are eager to gain practical tips on how to best navigate and become successful workers in the Gig Economy, especially as freelancers or business owners. Students’ comments and feedback at the end of every session always provide me with a great input not just on how best improve the session itself, but also on possible new leads to design successful student and young people’s engagement strategies.