As part of our #UCLInspireMe series, Lucia Weinber, Brilliant Club tutor and PhD student in Experimental Psychology, talks to us about how she got this role and shares some tips for UCL students who want to get into the academic sector.

How did you get into your role?

I am a Brilliant Club tutor and a first year PhD student at the Experimental Psychology Department. I found out about the Brilliant Club via an email of the UCL Graduate School. The relevance and suitability of the Brilliant Club as a part-time position specially tailored for PhD students motivated me to learn more, which I did through their website. I sent my application and was invited to the assessment centre to do a mini-lesson. I have just finished my first placement working with KS4 students, an enriching and exhilarating experience.

What are the best things about working in your role?

My PhD revolves around understanding teenage brain development. However, I deal with this in a laboratory setting. Having first-hand experience with adolescents in a real life setting has positively informed my research questions and procedures. I aim to do research that has applications beyond theoretical inquiries, and I believe this experience has helped me to better orient my research.

Working with students is stimulating and very fun! These interactions can be incredibly rewarding. Also, going into schools can be a welcomed break and change of setting once in a while. The programme is specially designed for PhD students and provides a flexible schedule and much of the work can be done from home or from the lab (i.e. planning the tutorials or marking). The Brilliant club is a meaningful way of engaging with the public and spreading the word about your research.

What are the biggest challenges you face in your work?

I had little experience as a teacher for young students before starting. Designing my course and materials, specially tailored for a 15 year old audience, was a big challenge. Delivering lessons and making sure students understood and followed along was sometimes tricky. Extra work on top of a time-consuming PhD is also a challenge, and you need to develop time managing skills. Fortunately, the Brilliant Club really supports and trains the tutors, and they are always willing to help.

What top tips would you pass on to a student interested in this type of work?

In academia, most of us will find ourselves in front of a classroom at some point or other. I think the PhD is a perfect time to start developing teaching skills and didactic strategies. Don’t underestimate the challenge of teaching. There is widespread belief that being a research student automatically gives you the ability to talk about your research or teach. Even if we have been students for very long, there is a lot to learn in order to become an effective teacher. It is a good idea to explore teaching assistant roles to work with undergraduate students. Structured programmes such as the Brilliant Club provide a very useful scaffold to go beyond university students and reach different audiences.

To talk to a Careers Consultant for further information on applying for a PhD, visit: www.ucl.ac.uk/careers

SPRINT is a bespoke programme designed to support the professional development of women at the early stages of their career.

Across 4 action packed days, you will learn how to:

• Use your personal power
• Use assertiveness positively
• Build your image, networking skills & confidence
• Enage with inspiring role models & industry professionals
• Gain access to a network of mentors and peers to keep you on track to achieve your goals.

dates: 15^th, 16^th, 18^th June and 10^th September 2015

UCL graduate, Clemency Sherwood-Roberts (BA Anthropology, 2013) took part in the SPRINT Programme in July 2014. Read what she has to say about the benefits of the programme below. Find out more and apply via your MyUCLCareers account by 9am Thursday 28th May 2015.

Why did you apply to the SPRINT programme?
The SPRINT Programme stood apart from any previous career events I had attended whilst at university because it did not just focus on the classic topics of networking, CVs and matching skills to jobs. It also looked at personal and professional development through looking at being a woman entering the workplace, focussing on how to stand out and define yourself individually through the beginning stages of a career.

What was your highlight from the programme?
The Home Group. Before the course had even begun you were sat next to a group of like-minded young women who would support you and each other through the four days and beyond. Your own little network created immediately, so pick where you sit wisely!

What did you gain from the programme?
The largest gain I took away from the SPRINT Programme was a sense of perspective on who I am as a potential recruit. I was able to assess what I have achieved so far, what I can offer professionally and can utilise certain tools to effectively and successfully progress with this knowledge. I can revisit these tools over and over through the years, from basic prioritisation methods to dealing with different types of people who will cross my path.

Why would you recommend it to other students?
I did the SPRINT Programme having already spent a year in employment and it was still able to offer me so much. I struggle to see any reason why a female under/postgraduate wishing to progress into a corporate/commercial career should not do this programme. People pay hundreds in the work-force for training that matches the quality of SPRINT. On top of that, you also hear other women’s career stories. Each day there is the opportunity to learn from a mentor from one of the sponsoring companies. To have such insight and exposure whilst still an undergraduate, with so much opportunity still available to you, is truly invaluable.

Find out more and apply via your MyUCLCareers account by 9am Thursday 28th May 2015.

As part of our #UCLInspireMe series, Kirsty MacDonald, Shopper Marketing Executive for Personal Care at Unilever talks to us about how she got this role and shares some tips for UCL students who want to get into the Marketing sector.

How did you get into your role?

I’m Kirsty and I am on the Unilever graduate scheme in the marketing stream. My current placement is within shopper marketing personal care so I look after all in-store activity within our customers for Unilever’s male grooming brands including Lynx, Dove Men+Care and Sure. This is a local market placement where you concentrate on running brands as if they were an almost self-contained business. The next role will be more long term and strategic looking at the global direction of Unilever’s brands.

I studied Economics and Management at Oxford University before doing an MSc in Global Politics at LSE. Throughout my degrees, I became very interested in global businesses run in a sustainable way and Unilever came up time and time again as an example. I also wanted broad business exposure that taught solid principles that could be applied across industries and cultures. The FMCG industry particularly appealed as the end user you are aiming to reach is one of us, not another company like in banking or consulting, and there are numerous functions you work incredibly closely with such as marketing, sales, finance and supply chain. It was a real chance to learn ‘business’ (if you can be that broad) in a solid and varied way.

What are the best things about working in your role?

My role, as with any job, has its positives and negatives and they are often linked. I love having real responsibility – as soon as I joined I was given a very important project where I was the lead. I looked after all the budgets, forecasting, implementation, coordination of different parties, external communication to customers and much more. Although responsibility is fantastic it does come with some slightly stressful times. However you are given support and training throughout and the company’s culture is fantastic. We are one of the main advocates of agile working so I work from home at least once a week – as long as you get your work done and to a high standard you are given the freedom to work how you want. Other benefits include a salary raise every six months you are on the graduate scheme, a fantastic and industry-renowned training programme and the chance of a management position after you finish. The rotational nature is great for gaining experience especially within the marketing stream as you have a local and global market placement looking at more short term P&L management in the former and more long-term strategic decisions in the latter.

What are the biggest challenges you face in your work?

As I said, there are positives and negatives to every job. My most serious challenge would be coordinating all the different parties to reach an end goal. As mentioned before Unilever is incredibly cross-functional and everyone needs to contribute to drive our brands forward – you cannot isolate yourself and perform individually as you can when doing an essay or problem sheet at university. Often what is top of your list is at the bottom of someone else’s so it can be a struggle to manage even small projects and deadlines. Secondly, as the name suggests, the industry is incredibly fast moving and sales, plans, projects can change extremely quickly so you have to be willing to adapt, come up with solutions and leave sunk costs rapidly. Finally, at times it can be stressful however this is only really within working hours. As you depend so much on other people and functions for your work there is no real advantage of working late and this is not in our culture. My working hours are typically 830-6pm but within that time your brain works hard.

What top tips would you pass on to a student interested in this type of work?

Unilever, and many of the other industrial or retail companies, put huge weight on their competencies and it is always about demonstrating them in your applications, interviews and assessment centres. Do make sure that you tailor your application to each company however if I was to summarise what they all seemed to be looking for it would be ‘doers’. That is, people that don’t just concentrate on their studies but have interests outside of this, from sport to music to debating – it doesn’t really matter exactly what it is as long as you have a variety of passions. Relevant work experience is a plus but it is not a deal breaker so don’t get too hung up on this.

If you’re interested in a career in Marketing, visit Careers Tagged and find over 550 resources to get you started.

Careers in the Creative Industries Webinar: Wednesday 03^rd June, 1-2pm

Ever considered working in film, gaming, editing, motion graphics, design, scriptwriting or presenting? Or setting up your own company?

When? Wednesday, 03^rd June, 1-2pm

How? Register using this link:

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3860209767852398594

Join our webinar to listen and contribute to a Q&A session with Ash Denton, Creative Director of Explosive Alan Productions.

More about Ash…

Since graduating from the New York Film Academy, where he produced 16 shorts and worked on well over 100 others, Ash has worked in technology and gaming media for some of the biggest brands in the field, including CNET, Gamespot and Xbox.

At Gamespot, Ash was pivotal in the creation of Start/Select, a light-hearted videogames news digest show. It rapidly became the site’s flagship sub-brand, hitting the number one spot in the iTunes gaming podcast charts.

During this time, Ash kept his toes in filmmaking waters, writing and directing mind-bending short The Hollow Men which was bought by Shorts International and went on to be screened worldwide.

In 2010 he was recruited by Xbox, and picked up a Games Media Award in 2011 for the mailbag-show-with-a-difference SentUAMessage. In 2012, he co-founded Explosive Alan Productions with former Inside Xbox members Dan Maher and Gareth Wild.

Organised by the Careers in the Creative Industries team for students from across the University of London, this webinar will give you the chance to learn about careers in film, gaming, editing, motion graphics, design, scriptwriting and presenting and will give you insight into the world of work in the creative industries.

This post originally appeared on the Develop your Career blog