Student Spotlight: How Enactus Shaped My Placement Journey
Enactus provides students with the opportunity to develop practical skills, build confidence and create meaningful impact in their communities. In the blog below, we hear from Katherine Boyle, a Queen’s University Belfast student whose Enactus journey began with a single competition and grew into leadership roles, international experiences and a placement year at Unilever! Her story highlights how Enactus supports students to turn ideas into action and set them for future careers.
I first got involved with Enactus through a mentoring programme at Queen’s University Belfast. My mentor was a Queen’s alumna, and she spoke about how valuable Enactus had been for her, both professionally and personally. After that conversation, I tried to join the society at Queen’s, but unfortunately, it had fallen dormant.
Enactus Kick - Off Event at Unilever HQ, London
I still wanted to get involved, so I looked into Enactus more generally and came across Enactus Spark, a competition focused on developing and pitching new social impact ideas. It was something I could take part in independently, so I decided to try it. I made it to the final and placed runner-up, with another Queen’s student winning. That experience became the starting point for rebuilding the Enactus society at Queen’s and sparked my longer-term involvement.
Since then, my experience with Enactus has been wide-ranging. I have attended the Enactus Leadership Summit at British Airways headquarters, the Enactus Kick-Off at Unilever HQ, the Sodexo Project Accelerator in Dublin and the BDO Next Generation of Leadership Challenge in London. Although I have to say, my standout experience was travelling to Bangkok to attend the Enactus World Cup as part of the UK and Ireland delegation, which really demonstrated the global scale of the programme. I am now President of Enactus Queen’s, supporting the continued growth of the society.
Through Enactus, I developed practical skills that I use regularly. Pitching ideas to professionals and judges helped me become more confident and clear in how I communicate, particularly in high-pressure situations. Being involved in building and leading a society taught me how to work with different people, manage uncertainty and take responsibility. Accelerators and corporate-led challenges also strengthened my commercial awareness, particularly around balancing social impact with what is realistic in practice.
Enactus played such a significant role in helping me secure my placement at Unilever. While I was already aware of Unilever as a company, it was attending the Enactus Kick-Off at Unilever headquarters that genuinely sparked my interest. Seeing the overlap between Unilever’s values and Enactus and hearing a talk from Katie Sudds, Future Careers Manager at Unilever, about the range of opportunities available made the organisation stand out to me. Throughout the application process, most of the examples I spoke about came directly from my Enactus experiences, which gave me practical, real-world stories to draw on.
During the final stage of the assessment centre, I mentioned Enactus in one of my answers, and the interviewer told me they had also been an Enactus student. We bonded over our shared experience, and that sums up the sense of community that Enactus creates.
Enactus has been a defining part of my university experience and continues to shape how I approach my placement. It gave me practical skills, confidence and exposure to opportunities I would not have had otherwise, and definitely played a key role in helping me secure my placement at Unilever.
We would like to thank Katherine for sharing her Enactus experience with us and for reflecting so thoughtfully on the impact the programme has had on her university experience and placement year. Stories like Katherine’s highlight the passion, commitment and potential of Enactus students across the network, and we are proud to support so many individuals who are turning ideas into action. We wish Katherine the best, as she continues her placement and look forward to seeing what she achieves next!
