Student stories

The practical experience I gained working with the Fluor Pilot Plant while completing my undergraduate and master's degrees was instrumental in preparing me for my future career.

It’s important to empower young people and make them believe in themselves because there is a skill-set and unique strength in every single care-experienced person that’s waiting to be found. So why couldn’t it be found by lawyers? Why couldn’t it be us that supports them, makes them feel safe and makes them feel seen.

I believe studying at Surrey played a major role in helping me find opportunities because of its industry partners, location, and generally supporting students not only academically but extracurricularly. Being a University of Surrey student definitely carries a unique trademark with it.

When I gave evidence at an inquiry into the finances and sustainability of the social housing sector. It was definitely one of the most unique experiences of my career so far!  I went in to demonstrate that private impact capital can continue to play an instrumental role in delivering more good quality social and affordable homes in the UK, particularly for the most vulnerable.

I hope that anyone following a similar journey in my field will find that the path has been smoothed by people like me who have fixed the issues we’ve found along the way. Hopefully it won’t be many more years before being a ‘female engineer’ is so normal that it is no longer noteworthy – that’s when we’ll know we have succeeded!

The course itself is unlike any others offered elsewhere in the UK, with practical language skills at the core of the Modern Languages courses. Moving away from studying traditional literature opened up a world of politics, culture, translation and history that I wouldn’t have been able to study otherwise. 

My degree from Surrey provided me with the skills and experiences necessary to be competitive in the current job market. This included the use of engineering software, working in multidisciplinary teams, practical skills and problem solving.

I am incredibly fortunate to have graduated and gone straight into 'Les Misérables' in the West End as 1st cover Éponine. In fact, I’m doing Les Mis with 11 other "GSAers" (including creatives!), two of whom are from my cohort! We wouldn’t have had this opportunity without GSA.

I found sessions organised by Economics with different potential employers important when they came for an on campus visit ahead of the careers day. These sessions were filled with insights from many different industries that helped me decide on the way forward.