“There was some nervousness about moving to university and making friends, but I still anticipated a fun time. Societies at Warwick really help that: you can’t miss all the fairs you have at the beginning, and there are so many enthusiastic people you meet from all sorts of clubs and sports. That includes Warwick Volunteers. I loved Volunteers and, by my third year, I had become President of the Executive Committee – this is when I ran a 24-hour volunteering event, attended Volunteers staff meetings, and promoted volunteering to both staff and students. It was a great opportunity to directly engage with the Warwick community, provide leadership to the Executive Committee, and gain insight into the inner workings of an office.

It was a demanding role but you do make time, and the people around me were great at helping me prioritise. That prioritisation was useful experience to take into a job, where you have to prioritise every single day.

I also learnt about teamwork, communication and problem-solving, competencies that employers look for in graduates. It was equally important to have taken on opportunities to be proactive and diverse in what I did at university – not just someone who was good academically. Although having a good degree from somewhere with Warwick’s reputation gets you interviews, when it came to the interviews themselves, I’d predominantly talk about the skills and experiences gained from volunteering.

It was through Warwick Volunteers, and its relationship with Warwick’s Student Careers and Skills team, that I realised the kind of career I wanted to progress. By taking on a biomedical science degree, and because I’ve always wanted to help people, I’d already considered a career in medicine. However, by second and third years, I realised there were other attractive career options that would fit my altruistic values. I ended up taking a paid internship with a small learning disability charity called the Challenging Behaviour Foundation, before moving into the public sector to work for the regulator of health and social care.”