Stephanie studied our MA in Career Development and Coaching Studies from 2013-2017. She is now the founder of her own enterprise, Life’s Work Consulting, which is committed to unlocking career potential for both individuals and teams.

1. Credibility stamp. From a commercial perspective having a sound academic credential in career coaching to underpin my business has always been something that is very important to me. Quite simply the MA combined with my experience has helped open doors that may well have stayed close had I not gained this qualification. I have found that having an MA in Career Development & Coaching has given me both the confidence and a stamp of ‘competence’ that aids individuals and organisations in their decision making process in working with me. Particularly in this current climate where organizations and individuals are squeezed for resources, working with a fully qualified career coach is a safer choice to guarantee high quality results, and return on investment.

2. Increased learning capability. One of the many skills I gained from the MA was the ability to read, research and assimilate countless models and theories. I learned how to summarise, reflect and integrate into my own practice. I’ve kept up this practice and regularly read, and listen to many career and leadership development resources. During the last few months as I’ve needed to do this now more than ever! I truly believe in the concept of ‘lifelong learning’ and right now we are in a period of having to adapt, learn, and unlearn! The ‘learning training’ I received over the years of MA study has helped equip me for this and I have improved my cognitive capacity to absorb new learning and put my own interpretation on it, for the benefit of both my clients and my business. I integrate this into my practice by sharing career and leadership coaching exercises, tips, resources with my clients, and connections through resources, blogs, and LI posts. I’m planning on doing a series on integrating career development theories into practice – watch this space J

3. Comfort zone stretch. There’s nothing more cringeworthy and comfort zone stretching than recording yourself coaching and delivering a training a session, sending it in to be assessed by a supervisor, and having to watch back and critique as part of your assignment. However, the practical sessions during the MA have been critical to my professional development as a coach. The pandemic has given a lot of us the opportunity to reflect on our own development, and for some take on the challenge of learning something new. (Undoubtedly home schooling falls under this too!) What I’ve discovered is that once you become accustomed to stretching your comfort zone and achieved what you had never have thought possible, (gaining a distinction for my MA certainly was this for me), it inspires you to continue stretching. I’m constantly looking for the next challenge and currently taking additional coaching credentials in Team Coaching, and have learned how to shift face to face delivery to interactive online delivery.

There’s a lot more to come I’m sure and I’ll always be grateful of the opportunities the MA with Warwick has given me.