What our students are doing now

Nicky Cashman

Repository Advisor, Hugh Owen Library, Aberystwyth University

As part of my PhD studies in Aberystwyth, I tutored first year students in American Studies and Contemporary Writing. Another part of the teaching experience involved marking essays and on several occasions, giving lectures. Throughout my PhD, I had continual support from the English department and my supervisor. Since my viva in December 2008, I have been employed by the university as a Repository Advisor based in the Hugh Owen Library. What I learned as a postgraduate tutor stood me in good stead with my current post: I deal with academics, students and management as such. I give presentations and run workshops, all reminiscent of my teaching experience. Hence I can really say that all in all, doing my PhD in the English Department has been a fantastic experience: I have thoroughly enjoyed what has proven to be a personally enriching and fruitful three years of study.

Claudine Conway

Marketing Manager for Volcano Theatre Company

When I received my BA Hons in English from Aberystwyth University, I decided to do an MA in 18^th Century Studies. After graduating it took a few years until I came across the job in Swansea-based Volcano Theatre Company. I hadn't then seen the work of this indecorous and talented bunch of not-quite-Marxist/Feminist/Anarchists, but then I met them, and found them and their work maladjusted, hilarious, bloody-minded and deeply refreshing. Eight years later the company has changed a lot, but those adjectives still apply, and my job is essentially to communicate (to audiences, the media, funders, promoters and politicians) why such qualities are a good thing. So in theory I devise and implement the company’s marketing strategy, manage marketing and press campaigns, oversee print design, production and distribution, write copy, maintain the website and so on. In practice I do as much of this as I can while explaining to someone on the phone that we don’t actually do shows about volcanoes, searching the web for one of those things they measure your feet with in shoe shops and arguing about whether After the Orgy is a suitable show to tour to Saudi Arabia.

I know that interesting and permanent jobs in the arts sector in Wales are fairly scarce, and there is no question that my degree at Aberystwyth has contributed not just to my ability to secure one of them, but to shape and develop it and to engage critically with the work and its context. Not all jobs require or encourage critical thinking or offer any degree of self-determination, and many do quite the opposite, but it's safe to say that a stimulating and challenging degree course, such as you find in Aberystwyth, will enable you to recognise where these things can be found and will equip you with the confidence to demand them. And in return, as an English graduate, you can offer enlightened employers an armoury of critical, analytical and communicative skills, as well a command of linguistic styles and registers that will be the envy of your colleagues from other disciplines.

Dr Robin Gilbank

Lecturer in British Literature, Northwest University, Xi’an, China

Since receiving my PhD in February 2008, I have worked as Lecturer in British Literature at Northwest University, Xi’an, China. My thesis was on the construction of male celibacy in later medieval religious writing and was supervised by Professor Diane Watt. Although on the surface that may sound like a fairly obscure area, the experience has proven surprisingly durable. Researching and writing the doctoral degree helped me to develop a strong sense of personal discipline and organizational skills. When one is responsible for teaching almost one hundred English Majors and managing all the admin work that goes with that, both of these things come in very handy!

Northwest University is located approximately 600 miles to the west of Beijing in Shaanxi province. The city has a metropolitan population of over two million and historic sites such as the Big Goose Pagoda and the Terracotta Army are to be found in the immediate vicinity. Even though, a number of students from Xi’an have studied for MA degrees at AU, I am the first person in any discipline to go from Aberystwyth to teach here. My academic qualifications have meant that I am in demand for projects which lie outside my immediate area of expertise. I am currently engaged in a project which will help make available the work of local Shaanxi writers to the West. Possessing a PhD from a respected UK university still carries a good deal of prestige on the other side of the world.

Chris Morgan

Vice Principal for Academics, St. John’s College, Annapolis, Maryland, USA

I arrived in Aberystwyth as a stranger from a country across an ocean. I had never visited the United Kingdom and had no acquaintances there. But what I subsequently discovered in Aberystwyth I have carried in me like a treasure since. I mean the stunning natural beauty of Wales that encircles Aberystwyth and that became for me a source of endless delight and renewal. I mean the changing moods of that passionate city itself, reflecting the sea and the sky, and the strong inhabitants that came to accept me as one of their own. I mean the vibrant intellectual community of Aberystwyth University, and more particularly the Department of English and Creative Writing, where rigorous intellectual fellowship ripened into personal friendships. Following three years of intensive research, study, and writing in the field of contemporary poetry, I became aware not only of an intellectual growth accomplished within the Hugh Owen Building and the National Library of Wales, but of significant expansions in the heart as well. Aberystwyth can affect one in precisely that way. The sense of accomplishment I felt upon completing my studies was tinged with grief, and I realised later that this was indicative of the deep roots I had grown, roots that, despite my departure, remain alive and continue to grow today. I look back on my years of graduate study at Aberystwyth University as time of unparalleled growth and intense happiness, a cherished passage into my present life.