Hear from some of our alumni on how Royal Holloway helped them in their chosen career path, from making the most of opportunities at university to the support they had from their academic department and Careers Service.
You can also find plenty more examples of careers our alumni have gone into by looking at our individual academic department webpages in the Department and Schools section.
Helena
BSc Management with Human Resources (2015)
Helena, who graduated with a BSc Management with Human Resources in 2015, worked as a HR tax consultant for PwC after graduating before becoming a HR consultant at Ernst & Young.
She said: “Having a good degree is just the tick box that gets you through the door of an interview. That’s not to underestimate the importance of my degree but employers want more than academics. My interviewers have been interested about my part-time jobs, my role in Enactus and my volunteering experience. It’s the situations that show you can work well in a team, that you can communicate effectively and show personal resilience that pay off.
“My best memories of Royal Holloway are mainly of running the ambassador programme in the School of Business and Management. This role absolutely set me up for the career I’m in now. Implementing initiatives such as the ambassador helpdesk and a robust recruitment approach provided me with a wealth of transferable skills and great examples for interviews.”
Read more about Helena’s experience, along with some of our other Business and Management alumni, here. Alumni (royalholloway.ac.uk)
David
BSc Politics, Philosophy and Economics (2020)
David graduated with a BSc in Politics, Philosophy and Economics in 2020, and went on to become a software engineer for Capgemini.
He said: “Royal Holloway helped me discover opportunities via the resources available to students, for example, I got to learn a bit of Bloomberg Terminal coding, which was really helpful for my modules in Financial Economics and for my career after university. There was also a lot of interview classes that students can take advantage of to learn how to succeed in interviews with Bulge bracket banks like JP Morgan. I was also able to secure a Research Assistant role which was very helpful for building the skillset needed for the career I wanted.”
“After university I managed to secure a graduate scheme and got to develop on the technical skills I initially gained from Royal Holloway.”
Alistair
MSci Physics with Particle Physics (2020)
Alistair graduated with an MSci Physics with Particle Physics in 2020 and went on to work for UK Atomic Energy Authority after completing a placement with them.
He said: "The course prepares you for a career. Alongside world-leading physics content, we were also encouraged to pursue opportunities in industry or research as well, to help us transition to the next step after university.
"The small size of the campus and especially the Physics department appealed to me, and I definitely made the right decision: The student-to-staff ratio meant we gained access to research opportunities throughout the degree that would simply not be possible at larger institutions. The range of specialisms on offer truly meant I could discover what I was most passionate about, and working alongside the academics on cutting edge projects allowed me to explore these topics first-hand.
"My greatest professional achievement to date was to be given an opportunity to directly control the largest fusion reactor currently operating in the world."
Megan
BA History (2020)
Megan graduated with a BA in History and joined the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport as a Private Secretary.
She said: "A History degree definitely taught me how to write well, write a lot, and write at speed. These skills have been super valuable when I’m writing papers or minuting ministerial meetings, and I know some of my colleagues have struggled to pick up those skills later down the line.
"Equally, one of the key measures of success in the Civil Service is ‘Seeing the Bigger Picture’ – all those seminar and essay discussions on social, economic and political factors has helped me to factor this strategic thinking in to my day-to-day work. And, given that Covid has brought the world, country and government the biggest challenge in a century, studying history reminds us that it’s all happened before!"
