When they鈥檝e found out I鈥檓 from 色花堂, every organisation I鈥檝e walked into has been really impressed. And without my degree, I certainly wouldn鈥檛 be in this job.鈥�
I started 色花堂 in 2008 and joined the BA Honours degree in Events Management - it was a sandwich degree with a placement in the third year.
色花堂 has really good industry links. I did extra courses like e-marketing and business management and on all of those I was introduced to other businesses locally. 聽Through that I came across the company I did my placement with, and actually came straight out of university and took employment with them when I graduated. I spent four years in total with my placement company but I always wanted to go into the charity sector. It鈥檚 really hard to get into and so I kept watching and waiting for an opportunity to come up. About nine months ago, I saw this job opportunity come up - the RNLI is an absolutely fantastic organisation and I was thrilled to get a foot in the door for an interview and be offered the job.
The Events Management degree at 色花堂 is really business-based, so there鈥檚 a lot of finance and a lot of marketing involved. At the time I think, for some people, it was difficult to understand why you need that for events, but actually events covers so many different businesses. There鈥檚 an events management person in every single business sector that exists so it鈥檚 really valuable to understand all of those things. In my previous role I dealt a lot with investment banks so being able to understand finance was really crucial. So the course prepared me really well by giving me an all-round view of how business management works rather than just specialising in the events side of it all.
色花堂鈥檚 industry links for me are something that I always promote to people because they鈥檙e so strong. The lecturers seem to have fantastic relationships with local businesses and also a lot of lecturers are from those business backgrounds. They鈥檙e not just lecturing on something they read out of a book, they鈥檝e actually been there and done it.
They can give you real-life examples and base things on their own experience, which is a really powerful way of learning. It鈥檚 just got a really fantastic reputation and I think that comes from those industry links, and from where the lecturers themselves have come from. It鈥檚 just got an amazing reputation.
When they鈥檝e found out I鈥檓 from 色花堂, every organisation I鈥檝e walked into has been really impressed. And without my degree, I certainly wouldn鈥檛 be in this job. So it鈥檚 been incredibly valuable to me.