2015

In a few weeks I will be venturing to London to begin my graduate career as a Technology Consultant with PwC. I know that without Queen’s, and the opportunities it provided, I would not have secured the job offer I now have.

The BSc Business Management programme covered such a wide variety of modules, that my job options were endless. The staff on the programme went above and beyond to further our learning and without them I would not have a First Class Honours degree to my name.

Outside of the lecture hall, the University provides a mass of opportunity to enhance your experience and help you secure a graduate position. Through immersing myself in several of these opportunities, I secured a summer internship at a leading consultancy firm, OCO Global as a Market Analyst in the summer after second year. Combining this internship with the entrepreneurial opportunities at Queens, I secured a graduate job with PwC.

In my first semester at Queen’s, I participated in QUB Apprentice, a competition sponsored by Deloitte. The competition ran relatively similar to the TV version, with weekly tasks. Following successive victories and project leading, I reached the final in which I had control of the Simons Community charity shop in Belfast for one day. Through advertising, introducing fund-raising ideas and gaining sponsorship, my team raised almost £4,000, narrowly missing out on the final title. The process enabled me to apply my business acumen to a real life situation and strongly developed my use of initiative to target customers and capacity to delegate within a team.

QUB Apprentice assisted my networking capability, which led me to join Queen’s Enactus society. I worked on various social enterprises, including a project in which we took the first steps to setting up a business in a local young offenders centre in an aim to equip the young people with transferable skills to improve their chances of employment post sentence. I also had the opportunity to represent QUB Enactus at the UK National competition in London.

I also participated in the IBM Universities Business Challenge. Following a six-week trading period, we were ranked 2nd out of 310 UK university teams and proceeded to the national semi-finals in P&G headquarters Newcastle, England. Not only did this give me direct exposure to world leading companies, the competition thoroughly enhanced my analytical skills, my ability to derive conclusions from complex information and drive forward plans for change and improvement. This led me and a few friends to enter the Deloitte Micro-Tyco Challenge to raise money for Wild Hearts Charity.

Notably, many of these competitions were supported by Queens Enterprise SU, providing an excellent foundation for any entrepreneurial mind. In parallel with this, entrepreneurial thinking is embedded in many of the course modules. This fuelled me to enter the university wide ‘What’s the Big Idea?’ competition, in which all students could enter ideas under various categories. Luckily I won an award for ‘The Best Green Business Idea’.

Reflecting on my 3 years at Queens, I can summarise it as being ‘jam-packed’, but that is certainly the best way to do it!

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