I chose Wolverhampton because it was a football team I wanted to watch. It was in the era of Steve Bull and thought it was as good a place as anywhere to study and then to watch some good football. It’s not a very good reason and not one that I recommend to my current students but it worked out perfectly for me. I loved having lectures in the building connected to the Molineux Stadium. It was very close to West Park, where we could all chill after a day of lectures in the Wolverhampton sunshine. Being a long time ago I do not remember too much about the lecturers but I must have been inspired by them somehow as I went into teaching! My friends and I have many happy memories: the bars, singing karaoke, watching soon-to-be famous comedy acts like the Rubber Bishops (that included Bill Bailey) and Lee Evans, being stunned and amazed by The Regurgitator, and playing the normal student drinking games. I became much more confident in the second year as I moved into a house with my friends in the heart of Wolverhampton. Eventually I was given the opportunity to be part of the Wolverhampton football team and wrote match reports for the student magazine and eventually became the representative for my course and organised the Economics Ball. It was all great experience for my future roles and even though I’m not a journalist, I still enjoy writing today and have had articles published on the TES site and produce a blog on teaching.

Clearly my degree helped in my career as I’m teaching the subject that I studied but also the wider aspects of university life that I got involved in at Wolverhampton have also helped. Also the accountancy part of my course proved invaluable when I was asked to teach Business Studies and the finance units of it. I was not a big fan at the time of that part of the course but now appreciate the experience I had.

Since graduating I have taught for several years and I am now Head of Economics at Dame Alice Owen’s School. After graduating at Wolverhampton, I studied for a PGCE at the University of London Institute of Education and that was my route into teaching. I teach GCSE and A-level Economics to 14-18 year olds and as you can imagine it is hugely fun but sometimes incredibly stressful. Keeping students interested in some of the dryer aspects of Economics can be a challenge but when you see students passionately debating topics like a third runway at Heathrow or gender wage gap, then it feels incredibly rewarding.

The advice I would give to any potential student is to get involved with any opportunity that comes your way. There is always lots of stuff going on at universities and Wolverhampton is no exception. Also, the town was always quite lively and I think students should embrace the area as it has some excellent venues like the Civic Hall. We always enjoyed going bowling, doing some laser quest, and so on, although I am aware some of those places have disappeared now.