Transcript of Graduation 2024 interviews

My name is Jasmine Gregory and I studied Rural Land Management. I'm really grateful to be here. I'm grateful to sort of have got this far and it's a really exciting day and I suppose a day as well of looking ahead to what's next.

So, I'm currently working as a Graduate Surveyor for Fisher German and the RAU has really helped my journey because I did a placement in my second year and during this placement I really got to know sort of what it was like working as a surveyor and actually this enabled me to um yeah secure a graduate role.

I would say that new students should just get involved in everything that they can get involved in societies, yeah just really go for it and have the best time and make sure you take every opportunity that comes your way.

Hi, I'm Priscilla Baker, I've just graduated finishing agriculture. I think I loved the amount of time you got to go out on farm and go on lots of trips and everything and the lecturers were always like so supportive. Some lectures I didn't fully understand and they were always like so welcoming, to go and just have a one to one with them or anything so I think that's what I liked most about agriculture, and yes I have got a job, I work at Madeleys Charted Surveyors in Much Wenlock, and both of my managing directors actually came to the RAU, so and they loved the RAU when they came here and I think it speaks so highly of the uni that they wanted to employ someone from here as well. I think the RAU kind of gives you like a family feel and you kind of, it stays with you the rest of your life.

Oh my best memory probably was probably the first May Ball here, just because you got to see all of your friends make lots of new friends, pushed you kind of out of your comfort zone, you know it's a lot of people, big events but I think kind of makes you so confident. The uni put on so many big events and I think that's what kind of makes the RAU. Probably new students I would say just talk to everyone, everyone is friendly if you're struggling ever talk to your lecturers, you know don't be  afraid to ask questions. I came from a farming background but it doesn't necessarily mean I know everything about agriculture and I think don't like just don't be nervous to ask anything and make friends have fun and I've definitely made friends for life.

My name's Cameron Gleed and I studied Rural Land Management. The RAU is a fantastic environment for learning and socialising, it's been brilliant, I've really enjoyed the small uni aspects of it, the the small class sizes and the lecturers' backgrounds they've, we've had a really good really good range of, a really good range of different experiences, from the mocks and the tutorials all the way up to all the way up to more sort of more theoretical side of things, it's been a really great small environment to learn, it has been a really small friendly University.

I was involved in setting up the RAU Land and Real Estate Society so I started in my, when I was in my second  year I started that up with helping postgrads and I took over in my third year. We ran dinners we ran a few talks and socialising events and it was a brilliant opportunity to be  able to engage with not just the undergraduates but also some postgraduate students as well and being a core Society we were able to sort of link it into our the future employment. The RAU has been a great building block to get me to where I am right now which is about  to start a graduate surveyor job with George Webb Finn back in Kent, and I'm hoping to sit my APC and my CAV examinations in the next few years and become a qualified land agent.

I'm Malvina Winston and I did Entrepreneurship Enterprise, the bachelor's degree. it is such a weird feeling cos I'm an international student and when I came over to the UK and all my time in the UK has been  about being a student, so now that part of my life is done it feels a little weird so, but also exciting and looking forward to the future and the job role being the Alumni Engagement Officer, so that will be really nice looking forward to working with all all the rest of the team.

So as part of the course that I did it was very much interlinked with the Enterprise team and their workshops and networking event and obviously the First Steps Fund, the Next Steps Fund, this degree helps develop your business idea and you have mentors help support you through about the development of your idea and you pitch for ideas and especially there a big Dragon Den style Grand Idea competition, in my first year I was a finalist for it and I got  to meet Levi Roots, he is amazing, and it's just been such an exciting experience being able to practice what I've learned through the modules.

My name is Herbie Frankcom, I studied Rural Estate Management.

My name is Erin Forsyth and I studied a Master's in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security.

I work at BCM Wilson Hill down in Winchester as a Rural Surveyor.

Yeah it's good, it's nice it's come around and it's just a nice day everyone seeing friends that actually haven't seen since I finished uni so it's really nice.

I spoke to uh the careers advisor who helped me you know progress my CV also my personal statement which yeah then helped me with questions as well before my interviews which just really good, and also we had lots of milk rounds where lots of different companies then came in to go and see us which then led me to go and apply at BCM Wilson Hill and got me the job.

Having done an undergrad degree it's nice to be coming to the RAU where it's quite small and you can you know everyone who's  doing Master's, like Herbie and I aren't on the same course and friends it's really nice to just like hang out and being able to play sport you still know the undergrad so it's really nice it just feels kind of like a bit more the community.

Yeah we all studied together as. yeah so we all did our like revision and libraries and yeah really got to know other people than, you know, than our course.

So I've just got a job as an Assistant Rural Consultant with Agrovista so I'm very happy.

So I love playing hockey I was in the ladies' first team and we actually got to the final, or the BUCS Cup final which is quite it's separate to the the BUCS League, you get a trophy or a medal if you win and um we lost it due to a squirrel running across the pitch so we stopped playing they kind on playing and they scored a goal and near hit the squirrel but we came second which was a great moment for RAU being such a small university in comparison to the universities that we play against, we've got two teams they've got about seven, so it was really nice for us to get a medal and just really enjoy that as a team.