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The respondent to this survey is Suzanne who is from a White British background.
| What qualifications did you hold prior to starting university? | 3 A-levels. |
| What was the name of your course? | Biomedical Sciences BSc (Honours) |
| While at university have you worked part-time? | Yes |
| While at university have you performed any voluntary work? | No |
| While at university have you undertake any work experience? | No |
| Please give details of your experience? | Worked during holidays, kitchen jobs. |
| How useful did you find this work experience when it came to find a job after graduating? | Not related. |
| What is your status? | In full or part time employment |
| What is your job title? | Analysis Programmer |
| What responsibilities do you hold? | Program tables, listings and figures and other statistical output for clinical trial end of study reports. |
| What do you enjoy the most about this job? | Programming and problem solving. |
| What do you enjoy the least? | Tight deadlines, disorganisation and low levels of competency within department. |
| What was involved in the recruitment process for this job? | Previous programming / industry experience, phone and face to face interview. |
| Do you feel you have a career plan? | Yes |
| If so, how does your current situation fit into this plan? | I would like to go back to university and specialise more, probably do a masters in statistics so I could become a bio-statistician and have more opportunity for growth available.,I looked at directories of companies accepting graduates and went to some graduate fairs and talks. |
| When did you start thinking about what you wanted to do after graduation? Thinking back did you leave enough time for this? | I wasn't sure, I started with a lab job for a year which I didn't enjoy, then I ended up as a data manager at Parexel in Sheffield, as it was in Sheffield, then after 2 years (which I didn't enjoy much) I moved to the programming department there and found that this was something I enjoyed and wanted to progress at. |
| Did you experience any difficulties when it came to finding work after graduation? If yes, please describe some of the problems you faced? | No, not really as I was looking very broadly. |
| What do you wish you had known before you started applying for jobs? | To be more confident in my own abilities, noisy, outspoken people often aren't very good at their job. |
| What advice would you give to someone applying for jobs now? | Really find out at interview what you will be doing day to day, what lines of progression there are within that job (i.e. how you could move laterally). Joining a big company to start with in a general area of interest can be a good idea as there will be a lot of different areas that you could move into and become more specialist later on. |
| Would you have done anything differently while at university to prepare for your career? Please give details. | I would have thought more carefully about which course I did at university, but this is more to do with lack of careers advice at school. I went to a girl's school where programming was never mentioned as a potential career. I also didn't realise that being good at maths would mean that programming was something I might like or that it could lead into this. |
| How do you feel your degree has prepared you for today's labour market? | Not at all really, it was all completely geared towards academia. |
| What impact did your course have on your career aspirations? | Undecided still |
| Did you make use of the careers service at university? | Yes |
| If yes, please describe how you used the careers service. | I looked at directories of companies accepting graduates and went to some graduate fairs and talks. |
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