Bron Bury, American Studies and History graduate

Why did you choose your degree? 

"I was always interested in studying history, though I was very keen to find something that would give me a slight edge, as history is a particularly popular degree – and rightly so!

I also thought having a joint honours degree would give me the chance to study some really unique modules. Those were the main reasons, but the year abroad opportunities were very popular for lots of people too."

What did you enjoy most about your course and would you say this influenced your career path?

There was a broad range of options that encouraged you to really delve down a new rabbit-hole, that you may not have looked into before.

 "What I enjoyed the most about it was the fact that it balanced well-known periods of history with other more unique and specialist topics. I think, in a lot of ways, my degree did influence my career, but not in ways I appreciated at the time.

Now, I can see several direct parallels between my degree and my job, such as now where I take updates and statistics from War Child’s country programmes and present them in different ways to a variety of internal and external stakeholders. Wrestling with complex concepts and being able to communicate them concisely to different audiences has been a particularly useful skill I developed whilst at Nottingham."

What were your next steps after leaving higher education? 

I didn’t apply for any graduate schemes at the time, but I did see many of my friends go down that route. At the time I knew it wasn’t for me.

"I wasn’t fixated on making a commitment for the next two years into a grad role straight out of Nottingham, and there was not a single industry that really stood out to me. 

Instead, I opted to do more work experience whilst I was at Nottingham, just to get a flavour of the different industries which I could one day explore. Then when it came to applying after university, I looked for a role that had a range of different elements which would allow me to test the waters a little.

My first job had a mixture of fundraising, event management and communications, which allowed me to use a lot of the skills I developed during my degree. In my first role, I found that I most enjoyed the fundraising element, and in my next position I was specifically looking for a role which was centred on fundraising. Since then, it has been gradual steppingstones to where I am today."

What do you enjoy most about your job now? 

"I like that no two days are the same, and I’m very fortunate that I get to interact with so many kind and amazing people – both the supporters of War Child and the team members I work with."

Do you have any other future career ambitions?

"I am really interested in developing more experience in major donor fundraising and making the most of the brilliant opportunities which I am fortunate to have at War Child."

If you could go back, what changes would you have made in your approach to university/student life that would make getting to this point in your career easier? 

"Definitely make as much use as possible of the alumni events and the insights that are shared there. I think I would have really benefitted from hearing anecdotes and advice from someone who studied the same degree.

I also would have done even more work experience and placements and would have spoken to the careers team – foolishly I don’t think I did that once during my time at Nottingham!  In general, I would have made use of the really good tools that are already in place."

I would have carved out time once or twice a month to solely focus on speaking with the careers team, to explore the variety of career opportunities which studying at Nottingham helps prepare you for.