Current Sussex School of English students have been discovering how their chosen degree can work for them in variety of ways after university at the School’s inaugural alumni event, ‘English Does Careers’.

Held on Wednesday 26 April at the Falmer campus, the event aimed to give students an opportunity to gain advice, information and encouragement from recent Sussex School of English graduates now plying their trade in a variety of fields.

The day featured presentations from graduates working in publishing, theatre, speech and language therapy and publishing, who talked about their route into the job and how their studies at Sussex enabled them to take a positive step towards fulfilling their career ambitions.

Kitty Wordsworth, Producer and Co-Founder of London based theatre company Damsel Productions, talked about a career in drama and theatre; Tasha Allen talked about her role as a  Publishing Administrator at Little Brown Book Group; Anna Pitts, Technical Account Manager at Hearst Magazines, told attendees about what it’s like to work for the largest digital magazine publisher in the UK; and Raj Cheema discussed working with Croydon NHS as a Speech and Language Therapist in children's clinics and primary schools.

All were graduates from the past 3 to 4 years, to ensure the advice was as relevant as it could be to the current student demographic.

The programme also included general advice from Sussex careers development advisor Claire Ward, and School of Education Teaching Fellow Sue Pinnick, on everything from potential job opportunities, skills training and CV preparation to volunteering, funding streams and routes into teacher training.

Event organiser Hazelle Woodhurst said:

“Despite only being the first event of this type that we’ve hosted for current students, the day was a resounding success in showing students just how adaptable a degree in English Language and Linguistics, Literature or Drama can really be, and just how many doors it can open for them.

“The feedback from the students has been excellent. The event helped them to think about career paths they may not have considered before. We look forward to hosting many more of these events to help our School of English graduates take their first exciting steps towards their future lives after Sussex.”

The School is already looking at a second event in the autumn and will be updating the School of English web pages, Facebook and Twitter with further information when confirmed.

Future potential career topics requested by students include PR, English language teaching, journalism, entrepreneurship and hospitality.