Alumni around the world share their post-grad study stories

Posted on 30th November 20209th February 2021 by sophie.davison

In a challenging year for making decisions about your study, 130 alumni around the world offered their words of advice to over 5,000 students considering Bristol at our postgraduate open week, 16-20 November.

Our international community of alumni volunteers responded to a call for their stories, memories and experience, explaining the impact their post-graduate study at Bristol has had on their career, the support offered during their time here and tips for making the most of life in Bristol over more than 100 different sessions during the week.

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Alumni Association Medal winner: Julian Metcalfe (BSc 1978)

Posted on 27th November 20205th February 2021 by sophie.davison

Julian with members of the London Branch Committee (picture taken in 2018).

Many congratulations to Julian Metcalfe (BSc 1978) who was awarded the Alumni Association Medal in 2020 recognising his outstanding contribution to the Association and its activities.

Julian has been Chair of the London Branch of the University of Bristol Alumni since 2016. He is now settled in London after an international career in diplomacy, which took him around the world after completing his studies at Bristol.

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Alumni welcome new School of Accounting and Finance students

Posted on 26th November 20205th February 2021 by clare.young

As our students started to arrive back to Bristol in October, or for those that embarked on their online learning from home, our School of Accounting and Finance alumni were on hand to provide a warm welcome to new students at their first online lectures. Students were no doubt facing a different term of learning ahead and having our alumni there to welcome them helped bring the student experience to life.

Five graduates from the School of Accounting and Finance shared their experience with current students, giving advice from their studies at the University and details of their career development after graduation.

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Alumni interview: Hillary Gyebi-Ababio (BSc 2019), Vice President (Higher Education), National Union of Students

Posted on 24th November 20203rd March 2021 by Grace

Recently elected as Vice President (Higher Education) for the National Union of Students (NUS), Hillary Gyebi-Ababio (BSc 2019) has taken remarkable steps since running as Undergraduate Education Officer for Bristol’s Student Union.

Empowered by her new role and inspired by an increasingly vocal national student body, Hillary shares unique insight into her experience at Bristol, the importance of her role on the Alumni Association Committee, and the integral role she believes alumni have in shaping the University and student experience.

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You’re mentoring those who need it most

Posted on 3rd November 20205th February 2021 by Sarah

Yousuf Chowdhury (BSc 2020) shares his experience of the Bristol Mentors programme and how it helped shape his career path.

My undergraduate degree was in Economics. So many of us assumed we were going to go into Finance, without really knowing any specific area we wanted to get into. I was applying to internships in my second year without much success and I didn’t know many people in the sector to turn to. I wanted someone to help me through the process and share their experience of the industry, and that was why I applied to Bristol Mentors.

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You’re shaping new graduates’ careers

Posted on 3rd November 20205th February 2021 by Sarah

India Fallon (BA 2014) tells us how her time at Bristol encouraged her to give back by volunteering as a Bristol Connects Career Expert.

Studying at the University of Bristol had such an enormous impact on my life and defined it in so many ways. I was eager to give back and do something to support current students and recent graduates.

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You’re expanding postgraduate opportunities

Posted on 3rd November 202015th February 2021 by Ellie

Olivia Kinsman was able to take up a place at the University of Bristol this year having been awarded the Keil Scholarship, which supports PhD students in the Department of History.

I can remember taking my A-levels and knowing how much I wanted to go to university. Even then I knew that eventually I wanted to do a PhD. I’m from a single parent household with a low income and there are lots of us in the family, so growing up was really challenging at times. I’ve always been determined that I wasn’t going to let my background or finances get in the way of what I wanted to do – even if that meant saving up until I was 50 to do my PhD. For me, applying for scholarships and being proactive about reaching out for financial assistance has been really important.

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You’re rising to a global challenge

Posted on 3rd November 20205th February 2021 by Sarah

Dr David Matthews (left), Reader in Virology and Dr Andrew Davidson (right), Reader in Systems Virology in front of their new microscope. The screen shows a virus interacting with cells.

Professor Adam Finn, of the Bristol Medical School, provides an insight into an extraordinary year for Bristol’s community of biomedical researchers.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, my laboratory was focused on the impact of vaccinations on respiratory infections in children. But when COVID-19 hit, we were compelled to pause that work, and redirect our efforts. The nature of our research meant it was possible to make that shift rapidly and we weren’t alone: researchers across the University of Bristol were applying their expertise to the emerging pandemic. The University’s COVID-19 Emergency Research group (Bristol UNCOVER) emerged organically and within a month, there were over 100 researchers, from a vast range of disciplines, meeting online each day to pool resources and expertise, and share progress.

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You’re creating space for research

Posted on 3rd November 20209th February 2021 by Sarah

Robert Chapman, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, explains how this fellowship is advancing important research.

The first year of my fellowship researching Health and Wellbeing for a Neurodiverse Age has been amazing. My PhD explored the philosophy and ethics of autism, challenging the notion that living with autism is inherently at odds with living a good human life. With the fellowship, I’ve been expanding on my previous work to explore neurodiversity more broadly, using my background in Philosophy and Disability Studies to explore the models we’ve developed to understand whether or not someone is psychologically healthy or unhealthy and how they might be ‘disordered’.

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You’re offering sanctuary

Posted on 3rd November 202015th February 2021 by Ellie

Chemistry student and former President of the University’s Student Action for Refugees group, Stephanie Hall, has witnessed how Sanctuary Scholarships can transform lives.

During my first year at Bristol, I went to a poetry reading in a café on Gloucester Road. That was where I first heard Home, an incredibly moving poem about how it feels to be a refugee. The piece was written by Warsan Shire, a Somali-British poet who was born in Kenya. In this poem, Shire talks about how you’d never want to leave your home, unless it had become ‘the mouth of a shark’ – in other words, when it becomes so unsafe that it stops being your home.

It was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever heard and it inspired me to join the University of Bristol’s Student Action for Refugees group (STAR).

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