Meet Aimee

My Career

Please tell us about your career since graduating:

I volunteered at St Oswald's Hospice in my final year at university, and when I graduated, they offered me a job in their communications team. I worked there for three years in various roles and then joined a marketing agency based in Sunderland to work with clients in lots of different sectors (and with bigger budgets!) and I learnt from some great mentors.

I was there for seven years and worked up to the management team, specialising in client relationships, account planning (research) and sales.

I left there to work in arts and culture, at a museum as their marketing director and then went freelance as a bid writer for commercial and not-for-profit clients.

Student life at Newcastle

How did your course and experience at Newcastle University prepare you for your current role?

Combined Honours trained me to handle multiple things at once, managing my time around multiple subjects/departments/lecturers/schedules. I enjoyed the thrill of being busy, and the different perspectives it gave me from other students. I brought learning, research and experiences from one subject to another which I think made it more interesting and gave me an edge in coursework and exams.

My job now is basically a lot of research and writing essays! So, University prepared me very well for that! Even the basic things you don't particularly care about at uni are really important to me now, like knowing how to reference a source properly, validate a source and knowing different ways to find research and data.

What advice would you give to students starting to explore the next steps after graduating?

I emailed and asked for work experience at a range of companies from London to Yorkshire to Newcastle and I really recommend that everyone does this. Pick up the phone, send an email, go to an event or even knock on the door! Business owners / organisation leaders want to see you have initiative, you're interested in what they do and you are eager to learn. You don't need to be perfect.

How has your degree helped you outside of your job, in your personal life or other pursuits?

I think it just gave me a real grounding in critical thinking, meeting lots of different people and being confident to be myself.