During Finley Barton's first week of lectures in his degree’s second year, his lecturer showed a PowerPoint slide promoting Lancaster University Entrepreneurship Society.

The slide featured a photo of the Society president at the time. Finley looked to his left and realised the person sitting next to him was the person featured on the slide.

‘We got talking from there,’ Finley recalls. ‘He convinced me to sign up and become part of it’

Finley is now President of the Entrepreneurship Society. When he joined, it was still a new society. The group decided their focus would be on networking and spreading awareness of opportunities in entrepreneurship.

Now, the Entrepreneurship Society organises regular socials and themed networking events, aiming to bring together a community of like-minded students.

Finley is proud that the Society has developed into a flourishing community that feels positive to be part of and has people return to its events week after week. For Finley, one of the highlights is the creative inspiration that can spring from conversations.

‘Something could click and you think ‘when I spoke to them, I had this idea of doing this.’ And then the inspiration spirals on like that.’

A recent major event for the Society was a networking event co-organised with other Management School student societies.

The ‘LUMS Mixer’ event assembled members from all societies related to the Management School like the Economics and Finance Society and Marketing and Advertising Society.

Bringing together people from such a diverse array of groups was a significant feat, enabled by a group chat with all the society Presidents.

Finley believes being part of the Entrepreneurship Society makes his experience of university more rounded.

‘The things I do in my own time in the Society is more of the practical side of entrepreneurship and I feel the degree’s more the theoretical side. So, even though they’re the same topic, adding those two things on either side together makes it a nice spread’.

He also credits his experience as part of the Society’s executive committee, especially as President, as giving him leadership skills that would transfer well to professional roles.

‘You’re the person who’s taking responsibility, organising all the meetings, making sure everyone’s doing their jobs, selecting your exec members – we had to go to an interview process – and all those skills are really good. Exactly what managers would be doing.’

With all that he has learned from growing the Entrepreneurship Society, Finley feels he could go in several directions after graduating and relishes the open-ended set of possibilities available to him.

As he points out, there is no grad scheme for entrepreneurs, and no clearly defined paths like there might be if you wanted to go into accounting, for instance.

‘If you’re President of the Economics and Finance Society, you’re likely to go into economics and finance; for the Marketing Society, marketing. But for entrepreneurship? You’re not going to get hired as a ‘graduate entrepreneur’. It’s a very different area.’

Finley’s focus, instead, is on being ‘a verb rather than a noun’. He wants to be defined by his actions. ‘Instead of saying ‘oh yeah, he’s an accountant’, he’s someone who’s doing this, trying to explore this.'

The Entrepreneurship Society is always open to new members. Finley points out that it’s one of the easiest types of societies to dip in and out of. ‘It’s different to sports societies. It’s kind of hard to join a sports team nine weeks into a term.’

‘We tell people, just come along. The whole point of networking is you go into a room not knowing anyone and come out knowing them and expanding your network.’