Today BioEmployability and Enterprise students had a chance to talk to five alumni of Bangor University and ask them questions about their past, current, and future career paths.
Beth
Studied bsc Zoology before undertaking her masters in Wetland Science at Bangor University. She graduated in 2015 and has undertaken three jobs since then.
- Wetland Consultant, helping with field sampling
- Snowdonia Society, conservation and woodland management
- Snowdonia National Park, senior warden, Snowdon partnership management
Beth currently works with Snowdonia National Park as a Ecosystems and Climate Change officer.
Nia
Studied Zoology with Marine Biology for 3 years before undertaking a funded masters in Ecology.
During her masters, Nia volunteered with North Wales Wildlife Trust (NWWT). When they became short of volunteers, Nia took on extra work and when leaving her masters got offered a paid job. The NWWT was absorbed by Living Seas when they became short of money and Nia got a full-time paid position as a manager.
She stays in the same organisation but takes on different projects and finds funding for them. Conservation jobs are few and far between, so she loves the chance to undertake differing projects.
John
- bsc Zoology with Marine Biology.
- Honours on salt water crocodile feeding behaviour.
- Offered a job working with crocs, but turned it down as prefers short-term research jobs.
- Research assistant in Bangor for 3 years but left as didn’t enjoy the work.
- 6 month summer job for Natural Resources Wales (NRW).
- Offered a permanent job placement shortly after with Welsh Water.
John runs a team of 6-8 scientists and his work sponsor PhD’s and offers a graduate recruitment program.
When interviewing people, he checks to see if they’ve pulled out specific phrases from the job description and scores them on a points-based-system. Giving more than one example for each gives you higher points.
Graham
Studied biology for 3 years then went on to do a PGCE course at Bangor in Outdoor & Biology .
This degree has allowed him to travel and work across the globe, including in places such as Australia, Canada and South Africa. He’s also worked across the UK, but he now teaches the Outdoor & Science course at Bangor University.
Teaching allowed travel, fieldwork and education, and it’s not restricted to Primary or Secondary education.
Education is a political football – Graham French
Rhys
Studied Zoology with Marine Zoology and undertook a masters in Molecular Biology. He currently works as an Animal Care Technician in the University’s animal labs, looking after the animals and helping to set-up experiments for BSc/MSc students.
90% poo, 10% science – Rhys Morgan
During the duration of his masters he worked with a PhD student in the animal lab, where he learnt and volunteered in the animal room.
When interviewed he was questioned on what would happen if a pump broke in the aquarium. Instead of calling maintenance he went into great detail of how he’d fix it; Rhys believes this gave him the upper-hand.
Common Themes
- Do what you love
- Spread your boundaries
- Volunteer
- Personalise your CV
- Adapt & change
Conclusions
The careers workshop was really helpful in quenching some of my fears about post-uni life. I thought there was a lot more competition with getting paid jobs as a graduate, and was unaware that being a committee member on a society counted a volunteering.
I was unaware of the amount of interesting things that I can actually put on my C.V.
Volunteering with Dig For Shakespeare? Archaeological experience.
Christmas job at Matalan? Experience negotiating with difficult customers.
Air Cadets? Experience caring for young children in unusual situations.
I also realised that teaching may be something I’m interested in. I love teaching children, and have done in the past, but I never considered it as a career choice until now. If I still have the opportunity to travel and partake in fieldwork then that could be a viable option for my future.
What now?
Although I’m still incredibly unsure about my future, I have decided that this isn’t the end of my education and if an opportunity arises for me to become a teacher, then I wouldn’t necessarily turn it down, especially if it gives me the opportunity to travel.
I also know that I’ve improved my interview technique, and I’ve certainly (alongside advice from the C.V. workshop) fine-tuned my C.V. Hopefully this, alongside the rest of the module, I’ve improved my employability and gained some valuable contacts.
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