Kaito Mizukoshi is a first year BSc Management Science student at UCL and a Project Leader of the Student-Led Volunteering project UCLef. Read about the project's work and Kaito's motivations, new skills and experience so far.
The whole event was something quite innovative and creative.
Which project do you lead? Tell us a little about it...
I lead UCLef which aims to share genuine classical music with socially disadvantaged individuals. We have streamed a concert to people suffering homelessness over the Christmas period and also delivered the online performance as the new year’s recital.
What are the key skills you gained by being a Project Leader? Give us an example of how you developed this skill.
had the valuable opportunity to learn how to manage people when working online, which has been something new. I believe the world is changing towards becoming a lot more online-based and many things may run remotely in the future. For this reason, I was quite happy to learn such a new managerial skill. I have also learned a lot about marketing and advertising. In the beginning it was quite challenging to recruit people to perform online but thanks to support from the Student-Led Projects team I was able to find performers and the best way to promote the project, for example, on social media and the volunteering website.
The experience gave me the confidence and motivation to establish a volunteering organisation dedicated to sharing music. This is something I have always had as a dream and this experience has prepared me for bigger endeavours in this direction!
What difference has leading a project had on you?
Previously, I joined concerts or recitals as a performer, and did not get involved in leading, organizing, and managing the concert itself. However, as a UCLef Project Leader, I was able to experience this whole process. It was certainly challenging, and I had pondered how to organize effectively at every single stage of preparation. This experience fully enabled me to confidently organize a “classical concert” in a professional manner.
How has your network developed whilst being a Project Leader? Did you connect with external organisations, volunteers or other individuals?
My network developed massively on this journey. I have had the chance to discuss how to deliver a project with other students and staff during our training session and we have also had many other networking opportunities. I have managed to connect to other project leaders who deliver projects not just related to music, which has overall been a very interdisciplinary experience. We also have an external partner, One Housing Group Ltd, which is a community organisation based in Camden Town, London. We discussed how to deliver our first online performance with the organisation, and finally succeeded in streaming our concert. By working with One Housing Group, they have offered us a lot of opportunities to share our music, and we truly appreciate their amazing input.
Tell us about something memorable that’s happened to you whilst being a Project Leader.
The Christmas Concert we delivered remotely in 2020 has been one of my most memorable experiences. We put together individual performances, as it wasn’t possible to perform together remotely. However, this gave us the opportunity to actually have more instruments at one concert than usual. At that time, it was still quite rare to see a streaming performance of classical music so the whole event was something quite innovative and creative.
What is the best piece of advice you would give to someone thinking about being a Project Leader?
If you have a plan or idea in mind, just go for it and be creative! Don’t hesitate to advocate your idea!
This is something I have always had as a dream and this experience has prepared me for bigger endeavours in this direction!
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