Well I’ve been here for ten years now - which seems unbelievable to me, actually! – but prior to that I worked as a lecturer in another college which is now part of Brookes so in a way it’s like being at Brookes for 12 years, I guess.

Video Transcript

I think the key personality train for any good careers advisor or for careers guidance work is curiosity . I think you have to have a really big interest in people. There’s a wide variety of courses that we run so we can be working with anybody from [courses in ] nursing to engineering to architecture [to] History of art. And of course the arts courses I really like because that’s where I started my educational career, really.

I really love working with students and it’s a very privileged job because you’re working with people who are in a very exciting period of their life and looking forward to changes and moving on so it’s very exciting.

We come from a wide variety of backgrounds – I mean, my background is not as a careers advisor; it’s from lecturing. I’ve worked, as I’ve said before, in everywhere from the City to the public sector and I think what you want in careers advisors are people who have a broad base of experience. I think the best advice that I would give students is don’t ignore the opportunities that just come up and don’t be afraid of taking them. I’ve taken lots of opportunities for things I thought, I’m not sure I can do that, but I’ve done it anyway, even though I might’ve been quite scared about it.