Å·ÃÀ¾ÞÈé

Why did you choose to study at NTU?

The course and the City of Å·ÃÀ¾ÞÈé. Throughout high school my form tutors were all science teachers, unknowingly I was inspired by them during science lessons. I enjoyed all sciences but Biology aligned to me the most from our in class experiences, to our homework having to present on past scientists who impacted the field. The second reason was the City of Å·ÃÀ¾ÞÈé, I grew up in a small town just outside of London so the experience of moving to the midlands in a city was something I could not resist; although my mother was not happy as she said it was too far! Little did she know how far away I would be living after graduating university but that’s best saved for another question below.

What did you think of the support available from staff and others at NTU?

I could not have asked for more. I have a younger sister who went to NTU 4 years after I started and the advice I gave her was “you have all of the support at this university, but you sometimes need to be proactive with it”. I think this statement is true, the course staff readily offered drop in sessions and when time permitted they would stay at the end of a lecture to answer questions.

I was not the gifted intellectual type, I have to work double as hard as my course friends to understand the same topic. In my third year I discovered library services which offered free help in structuring essays, I also discovered the people in the biology labs were more than willing to offer you advice if you went to them and they were not these scary older PhD students. My advice for people starting a Biosciences course is please in your first year, utilise the free library sessions and if you have labs, speak to the technicians!

What was the highlight of your course?

Making great friends. I think the nature of Bioscience courses helps facilitate this as during lab sessions you are often split into groups and have to work in a pair, so you are prompted to speak to a wide variety of people. I really enjoyed doing lab work with people and getting to know why they chose this course, their plans for after university and any other random topics.

I was privileged to use the new high tech buildings for my degree on Clifton Campus, it was amazing to learn in such buildings and in my opinion really made my degree good value for money.

Did you join any clubs or societies at NTU?

I worked for the library Pass Plus scheme, facilitating networking and de-stress events for students who were resitting exams over the summer.

I then became an elected Officer at the students union focusing on Postgraduate courses. I chose this role because I wanted to take a postgraduate course at NTU but saw some things I wanted to improve as a PG student at NTU and more specifically Clifton Campus. So I become an officer, made those changes for improvement for the PG community and finally  then studied my postgraduate degree at NTU.

What is your current job role?

I am a Business Analyst - Lead at Convatec and currently based in our Colombia office (referring to the earlier question, my mother would now think we moving to Å·ÃÀ¾ÞÈé was not so far at all).

We are a medical devices company that offer products & services across several areas but most notable Ostomy Care and Advance Wound Care.

Typical day in your current role?

A day in the life for me consists of several meetings with stakeholders across the business, analysing data from those meetings, creating processes and then presenting proposed solutions to improve operations. I learned during my course that I really enjoyed collaborating with people during seminars and labs, conversely, I did not like the actual execution of lab work. This came to light in my 3rd year when I spoke to the amazing Dr Jess Dale and voiced my concerns and I received the amazing advice that “not everyone who chooses this course is made to go into research or lab work, I have identified my skills lie in talking and presenting, why not find a job that lets me do that with scientific content”.

What did you learn while you were at NTU, and what inspired you to follow your chosen career path?

I really would like to inspire more undergraduates to speak to their tutors and voice any concerns they have about their careers paths - these tutors most likely have heard it all before and can give you great guidance. After my conversation with Dr Jess, I looked for roles within healthcare that play to my strengths of speaking and collaboration and it led me to my first graduate job after university (including masters) being that of a Business Analyst at Johnson & Johnson. My course friends and I laughed because I had always told them I wanted to work at Johnson & Johnson as a research scientist, so the company stayed the same, the role just differed.

What is the biggest challenge you have faced so far in your career and how did you overcome it?

Most definitely my move to Colombia for my current job. I wanted progress in my career and there was no Lead role available in our London office, only in Colombia. However, being over 5000+ miles away from family and friends and also not speaking the language of Spanish weighed heavily on me, but then I thought about it in a different way; being 5000+ miles away from family & friends and learning Spanish will grow me in ways that could not happen if I stayed. So then I left in August 2024!

The first three months were hard performing everyday activities not knowing the language but immersion is the best form of learning and now eight months later I can say I am somewhat fluent in the language and have developed many new skills learning from my Colombian colleagues.