For the latest updates from your alumni community
This November, we were pleased to bring a series of events online to our Chinese alumni and students, as a response to the cancelled central delegation to China.
As part of Bristol Connects Live– our online series of career and professional development events, members of our Chinese alumni community shared their experiences at two webinars focussed on Top Accounting firms, and Entrepreneurship to an audience of students and recent graduates.
Charlie volunteering with Helena Lee, 3rd year Electrical and Electronic Engineering student
Many congratulations to Charlie Gunter (BSc 2006, PGCE 2007, MSc 2009) who was awarded the Alumni Association Medal in 2020 recognising his outstanding contribution to the Association and its activity.
Charlie began volunteering for the Alumni Association in 2007, and as well as holding three degrees from Bristol, is also currently working in the Faculty of Life Sciences in student administration.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.