 I mean I've always been quite good at school, I always had quite high grades so I think it was sort of naturally assumed I was going to go but I think at the end of the day one of my favourite subjects was geography and I kind of quite liked looking at other places because I grew up in Cornwall so you do meet a lot of visitors who don't go back to other parts of the world and I was always filled with the desire to go as well so I thought how am I going to best get to do that and I thought well going to university away from home is probably the best chance of doing that, not just you know to study but also the people you're going to meet and things like that so I suppose that that in part was what inspired me to sort of go on to higher education. I was told to, well I take an anthropology at college so I already knew that I was interested in carrying it on so then it was just a case of looking at which universities offered it and I had quite luckily I had a lecturer who was quite sort of clued up on where to study best and sort of bringing out your interests so I was like well what are you most interested in? Well I'm quite interested in Southern Africa, I've been on a school trip there so I'd really quite enjoyed it and it was something and I did an EPQ and extended project qualification based on what I learned while I was out there so I sort of already had the beginning of it there and then I'd never heard of Sirass which is true of a lot of people I think who come here but he just said oh well you know Sirass is a fantastic place because it specialises in Asia and Africa so if you really want the best chance of delving in deep into what you've already expressed and interested in then that is your best place to go and then I was lucky enough to do sort of a week before everyone else arrived for students who hadn't had anyone in their family go to university and I knew from that week that that was definitely the right decision for me. It was quite good, I mean it was quite good, fantastic actually. I never really realised how much I'd be able to pursue what I was interested in and my interest, from the moment I first started my interest did change simply through you know accessing what was on offer here so that was academic side and you know I'd been quite interested in Southern Africa I'd also been interested in film I didn't quite realise there was so much sort of film courses at Sirass related to anthropology so I sort of did like two or three each of my units each year was related to sort of Southern Africa or anthropology of film so by the end of the degree you know I felt like I come away I come away from social anthropology degree but I'd specialised so much I felt like you know had really really pursued my interest so that was you know what made it fantastic for me then also the other side yeah I was in the drive did a few of the societies I did a president of drama society and sort of made friends for life from that so even though some of them you know I left graduated before they did and they stayed here sort of a year or two more than me I'm still in touch with them almost five years later after graduating and that you know that's fantastic and I think that's really getting their sort of spread across the world as well now so just by coming here you know I think oh where am I gonna go on holiday this year like oh well you know so-and-so's in New York at the moment so let's go there or so-and-so's know doing a place run you know with the UN in Geneva or something like that so you sort of either keep in touch with your friends it really sort of enhances your adult life as well and that was fantastic for me I never never really expected to get that just from being here so it had quite a good impact because I think doing anthropology a lot of people then ask you well what can you do with that degree which is sort of the first thing you get asked by your parents when you're telling what you're doing so it really forces you to sort of think outside the box and think well you know what skills am I going to get from doing anthropology and where it's going to be applicable so I did a master's degree after I did anthropology here because I suddenly realized I don't I didn't really want to be academic in it so I didn't want to you know go do masters do a PhD and professor I really wanted to use what I'd learned to try and impact the world so I did a master's degree in public policy of the road to UCL with sort of the mind of working in government the UK government or you know the UN things like that and so that was my sort of initial career pursuit and after having done the master's degree and I did a few internships at different organizations I realized I was quite happy to stay in London so I really wanted to find something in London that utilize the skills of sort of making impact on on people in education particularly and so my first so when I left one of my first jobs was working for philanthropic organization so the the organization was a business consultant but they donated a small percentage of their profits to the philanthropic team within the organization so I worked for that organization mainly sort of organizing the programs calling up schools getting involved and then actually doing some of the sessions as well so doing the delivery of the programs which is quite fun and that got me into my current job which is working at the social mobility foundation which is the same principle in improving social mobility in the UK but it's working with students from year 12 and above to get them into university raising their aspirations and then also making sure that they're achieving their goals by going to the careers they want to do afterwards. First of all look on the website and find what the alumni have said and then I would even sort of look at past students you know who they are what they've gone on to do and think about whether that is you know what you want to achieve. I'd also look at the library actually because the library has some really you know unique resources that you can't find anywhere else in the world and I think having access to those kind of materials when you're at university is unparalleled. You will make friends for life they'll probably be people you're probably the only person coming here so you're going to have to sort of push yourself out of your comfort zone but when you do you know the friends you'll make will be incredible and you'll have such amazing experiences.