Tony Ford

Tony graduated with a BSc in Chemistry in 1963 and stayed on to complete an MSc in 1965. 

What do you remember most about your time at Aber?

The fact that, being so isolated from the rest of the country, once we arrived in Aber at the start of the term, we were stuck there until the next vacation. As a result we made our own fun, and there were enough true characters about at that time that there was always something going on, and we were able to make friends easily through our social networks.

What are you doing now career-wise and how has your Aberystwyth Degree helped?

I am retired now, but my years as an undergraduate, and then as an MSc student, gave me a desire to want to be an academic, and my initial training equipped me to go on to do a PhD in Canada, and from there to my first academic job. I subsequently spent my entire career in university teaching and research.

What advice would you have for a student doing your course now?

My advice would be the same to any student taking any course. It is to make up your mind early what career you would want to pursue, to go for it wholeheartedly, but not to forget that university life is not all work, and to participate fully in all the social activities available. Many of the friends I made were not in the same courses that I took, and it is important to cultivate your social contacts from as wide a field as possible, among those people with similar interests to yours. I would have found it quite boring had I had to spend all my time with chemists.