I chose to study at the University of Birmingham as the university has a great reputation, particularly for its BSc Economics degree. Secondly, the campus is stunning and the red-bricks and campus vibe appealed to me. Birmingham is also a really youthful and exciting city to study in. I eventually applied to Birmingham and received an unconditional offer! 

During my time at university, I challenged myself to find new hobbies and meet new people as often as possible. I was the news reporter for the University’s radio station, Burn FM and an active member in many societies. I also took part in the University’s Outreach programme where I mentored students at a Birmingham school every Friday for a year during my second year.

I also founded the Women in Finance Society after noticing that many young women on my course didn’t feel confident enough about pursuing careers in male-dominated fields such as banking and consulting. In the two years I led the society, we grew to have more than 200 members, held more than a dozen events a year including a large student Conference sponsored by Deutsche Bank and Ernst & Young and with Bianca Miller from The Apprentice as the Keynote speaker. I loved leading this society, dispelling misconceptions about the financial services industry and working with leading financial services firms. It was great to hear back from young women who received internships and jobs from the events my team and I put on. Through this work I won the Guild Award for Outstanding Individual Contribution and Birmingham Young Professional of the Year’s Aspiring Talent award. 

In my first year of University I took part in PwC’s Women in Business programme, one of the many work experience programmes I had applied to. From this I then secured the summer internship in consulting in London in my second year at university. I was then offered a place on the PwC management consultancy graduate scheme. Since then I have been building my career in strategy and operations Management Consulting working with banks and more recently with scaling fintechs. I also co-leads my firm’s Multicultural Business Network, a large employee resource group with over 1,500 members. Outside of work, I blogs on my Medium blog A Millennial's Diary about careers and personal development for millennials, and run a female millennial community called the Now You’re Talking Network which has over 700 members. 

My advice to current students would be to be as proactive as possible. Meet new people who didn’t grow up in the same city, or even country as you. Develop yourself personally (find new hobbies through joining societies) and professionally (gaining work experience as early as you can). This will allow you to build new skills and try out different organisations, letting you know what you do and don’t like