The Student Nucleus is a startup run by students for students. At the centre of student life, they help students to easily buy and sell textbooks, find scholarships and funding, and connect with students with different skill sets. What a perfect match for the Student Enterprise Conference, we thought - and invited them to join us. Here, they describe their experience of the SEC 2016.

The Student Enterprise Conference 2016 was a brilliant event for thestudentnucleus.com team. We used the hashtag #lightbulbmoment during the event and it was fantastic to speak to so many other students who have had their own #lightbulbmoment. We are new to exhibiting at events but we have learnt quickly that free food always attracts a crowd, and students are no different! All of our sweets, muffins and cakes were happily demolished over the two days.

We had so many mutually inspiring chats with ambitious students from all across the UK, such as Southampton, Lincoln, and Manchester to name a few. They completely understood the benefits of thestudentnucleus.com website, and particularly identified with the need to fill a skills gap via our Skills Connect section. Every entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur understood the importance of creating a great team around them. One of our aims for the conference was to make students aware of the Test It Award we are offering. This award allows us to find, fund and support another student entrepreneur who has either created or has an idea for a social enterprise. The award is for £500 and will give the student the opportunity to test out their idea. It was exciting to speak to so many students who expressed an interest in the award and a desire to make a social difference with their entrepreneurial mind-set. We made some great connections with staff from multiple universities’ enterprise departments, including Loughborough and Plymouth, and had great discussions with the presidents of the entrepreneurship societies of Westminster and Liverpool John Moores universities. We had 25 students sign up during the weekend and have had many more in the days afterwards. We also made some great contacts with other organisations that we could partner with going forward. To call it productive would be a huge understatement! The whole event was very open, with students and exhibitors enthusiastically signposting each other on to relevant attendees who could help even further. We found the SEC to be the perfect setting and environment for students to ask questions about starting up in their own businesses without feeling worried or intimidated. Members of our team attended some fantastic and highly motivational talks and workshops, all of which will allow us to continue to learn and develop as a student business ourselves. The calibre of the speakers and the debates within the panel discussions were excellent, which added to the enthusiasm and energy of the students. thestudentnucleus.com team would definitely recommend that students interested in enterprise and entrepreneurship contact NACUE and attend next year’s conference. We’re already looking forward to meeting more student entrepreneurs at #SEC2017. You can get in touch with The Student Nucleus by mail or follow them on social media Twitter - @studentnucleus Facebook – thestudentnucleus Instagram – thestudentnucleus