14. Alumni News

Alumni News Where are they now and what are they doing?

Sonal Chohan

I graduated with BA (Hons) Applied Psychology degree in 2010 and went on to do an MSc in Developmental Psychopathology and remained a member of John Snow College. After working as Admissions Secretary and Resident Tutor at John Snow College, Queen's Campus, I moved to Durham City to work in a sabbatical position in Student Recruitment and when the contract came to an end in 2013, I decided it was finally time to travel a bit.

I moved to Italy as an au pair, initially expecting to return to Durham after six months, but quickly found a full time job in a private Cambridge English School as an English Teacher - Durham degrees are clearly highly valued everywhere! During my six years abroad, I travelled extensively within Italy and Europe, learnt to speak, read and write Italian, and enjoyed some of the world's finest food and wines, whilst absorbing Italian culture and their way of life.

I have now returned to the UK, a more cultured and well-rounded individual, with my Italian partner, two year old daughter and another little one on the way, ready to set down my roots in my hometown, Leicester.

I can honestly say my vast and varied experiences at Durham University, as an active student and member of staff set me up for an exciting and successful future, and without it I may not have achieved some of my lifelong dreams.

Georgie Toft

I graduated in 2015 with a 1st class honours degree in Business and Management. I wanted to move to London but I wasn’t sure of which area to work in, so I started working in recruitment. I enjoyed my time in this sector but it wasn’t what I wanted to pursue as a career, so after 18 months I enrolled with FDM, a graduate training company, to qualify as a Project Manager.

After completing the three month training course, I was placed at IHS Markit working on projects for MarkitServ, a platform providing end-to-end trade processing and workflow solutions for OTC trading. I’ve worked here for over three years and have retrained as a Scrum Master (agile software development) and currently lead three teams in software delivery.

I am also Head of Events for the IHS Markit Women’s forum, organising events that empower women and promote gender equality in the workplace. Outside of work I captain the London Orca Women’s Waterpolo team and compete in international leagues!

Luke Robbins-Ross

I graduated with a first class BA (Hons) in Primary Education at the University of Durham in July 2012 where I met my fiance, Jen, also a primary teacher and a former student of Stephenson College. We moved to Middlesbrough and I completed my NQT year at Thorntree Primary School. Jen and I moved to Halifax to be closer to her family and I secured a job as Maths lead for my second year of teaching. During this year I was also appointed Assistant Headteacher at the school. Jen and I bought our first house in Halifax in 2013 and we got engaged in 2014. I was heavily involved in writing the primary schemes of work in the initial set up of the White Rose Maths Hub and successfully introduced a mastery approach to maths teaching during my time as Assistant Head in Halifax. In 2015, I was appointed Primary Lead Practitioner for Dixons Multi-Academy Trust and worked closely with the Principals of the primaries on specific areas of need. My son, Harry, was also born that year. I was then appointed Senior VicePrincipal at Dixons Music Primary in 2016 and the academy secured an outstanding Ofsted judgement in June 2016. In September 2018 I was appointed as acting Headteacher at the academy and was made Head of Academy in July 2019. In the same year I celebrated my 30th birthday and Jen gave birth to our second child, Belle in June 2019. I have also co-authored a book about the primary curriculum which is due to be published in June 2020. Last year I sat on the Department for Education Expert Review Panel for Key Stage 1 Assessments.

In my first year at Durham I established John Snow College's first ever musical theatre group, which we names ' Infinity Musical Theatre Group' We regularly performed in College and had an annual musical production, in the ARC Theatre in Stockton. My love for music continues and in my spare time I am a freelance conductor and musical director of musical theatre productions but finding this hard to fit in with being a Dad to two children!

Nik Sharma Year of graduation: 2017 What I studied: Business Management (in final year I selected all Marketing modules)

What have I done since graduating: I have always wanted to combine the knowledge that I gained from my Business degree with my biggest passion and interest – music. I have actually been pursuing a career in the business side of the music industry since my second year at Durham University as this industry is very hard to break into with no experience. So, I completed various internship at different labels and music PR companies in London whilst studying, usually over the summer/Christmas holidays. All of this served to build up my CV and I was fortunate enough to land a full-time internship at Live Nation shortly after graduating. Live Nation own a large number of UK music festivals including Wireless, Reading and Leeds, Creamfields and more. Here, I was working in the Marketing Partnerships department based in O2 Academy Brixton and helped to connect concerts and festivals with brands such as Samsung and O2. After I completed my internship here, I worked for Global Radio in a sales-based advertising role for six months. This was a great experience as I got to understand how large radio stations such as Capital and Radio X operate on a day to day basis but I wanted to make a move to a more music focused role, so currently I work for the Official Charts Company in chart operations. This is amazing as the charts are the centre of the UK music industry and all big album campaigns strive to achieve top chart positions. What I do here is very varied and sits between marketing, sales and data analysis.

One of the highlights of my working career to date has to be when Stormzy came into the office to collect his number one award. He is such a genuine and down to earth guy, it was surreal to actually have a conversation with someone whose music I listen to every single day.

I feel very blessed to be working in the industry that I am currently in and I know that I couldn’t have done it without the support of John Snow College as I really loved my time there and everyone I met whilst at Durham.

Ebenezer Asmah

What I studied: Business and Management with Foundation

Year of Graduation – January 2018

Short story of what I have done since Graduation: Since graduating one of the mistakes I made was spending too much time looking for the perfect job title. I’ve learnt now that you can’t expect to get it straight out of University. It can take a lot of time! However, my rationale for this approach was because I had previous work experience within corporate and public environments and believed I could be hired easily. I had a job as a senior inpatient administrator straight out of University, but this wasn’t the role I wanted to have throughout my career. It was easy to feel pressured, especially as my peers were landing roles within investment banks and technology firms.

The lack of success in landing a graduate role after graduating, inspired me to do something I’d always wanted to do, which was to start a catering company, where I would cater for events such as, baby showers or private parties. It was a steep learning curve, but completely rewarding.

Fortunately, after months of searching, I am now working as a C-suite graduate trainee for Travellers Insurance Company Limited. I am currently in my second rotation around the business units under our Chief Operating Officer. The catering business is on hold for now, but I hope to resume one day in the future. My advice to students will be, your graduate life and career will take its own unique path, be proactive in your search for roles and apply as early as possible, but don’t be afraid to try something different. Always keep moving forward!

Are you a graduate that has a story you would like to share with the John Snow College family?

If so, please send your story to: snow.alumni@durham.ac.uk

Contact us Durham University Rushford Court North Road Durham DH1 4RY

T: +44 (0)191 334 0046 E: snow.college@durham.ac.uk

Main Switchboard T: +44 (0)191 334 2000

Values

At John Snow College, we enable our students to develop in every area of life throughout their time here. There's a great variety of clubs, societies and organisations to join and excellent support from friendly staff.

Founded in 2001, we are a modern yet traditional gowned college with self-catered accommodation.

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