icould - Careers Advice, Choices & Ideas

Andrew Douglas

Andrew Douglas

00:02 My name is Andrew Douglas and I am currently a potter working and living near Kings Lynn in Norfolk.

00:09 My school days were happy ones they, I enjoyed school. I wasn’t a star at school I think there are teachers who would look at where I am now and, and be amazed. I mean my father was a teacher at the school so he had an academic side to him.

00:29 And my first degree was in computing science and I did a sandwich degree. I was fortunate enough to go and work for a company in Germany, which was a government research organisation. I started reading around various sort of bizarre subjects within computer science and got hooked on something called functional programming and went back to the university and did my final year and then after that I had a proper job lined up but I didn’t want to do that I wanted to do research, I wanted to do my own thing, something that was interesting and I had in my mind that, that the way to do that was to go on and do a PHD and that’s what I did.

01:13 Throughout the career I’ve been fortunate enough that  the longest I’ve spent in any particular aspect in my career was 8 years and which is not a great deal of time if you think of people for companies for 35, 40 years you know they fall into a company when they could leave school and leave when they retire. I’ve done lots and lots and lots of different types of things and each time there’s been a learning aspect to it.

01:41 I had always bought a lot of pots, glassware and you know various works of art and things. I started doing an evening course about 4 or 5 years ago and wasn’t particularly good at it either when I got there and all of a sudden things seem to click and to be able to make them it was just a revelation really.

02:04 This is how I intend to make a living, it’s not a very good living I must admit it’s, you’ll never get rich from it. Unfortunately I’d got to a point in my career where things had started to click and made a bit of money and just worked out that I could stop and start doing something else instead.

02:26 My parents were very, very, maybe and that’s because they enjoyed what I was, they liked the choices that I’d made perhaps. If I’d gone, if I’d decided to be a potter at that time maybe they would have pushed me in another direction.

02:44 And going on and doing a PHD I know they were, they were very proud of me and, and pleased that I’d done that. But there was absolutely no pressure there at all. I followed the route that I wanted to follow. I mean most of the mentors that have come recently that decision to move from one career into another came from working and talking with, with other potters basically who convinced me that it was time to make that step and I was ready.

03:18 It’s a nice life, it’s very, you know cyclical life of making and glazing and firing and then clearing up and then going back to that. So there’s, there’s definitely a routine but within that routine there’s a lot of freedom, which I enjoy. The biggest problem with pots is making money.

03:41 I’ve always got the old career to fall on I think if I run out of money then I can always go back to what I’ve done before.

Andrew Douglas

Andrew Douglas My name is Andrew Douglas and I am currently a potter working and living near Kings Lynn in Norfolk. My school days were happy ones they, I enjoyed school. I wasn’t a star at school I think there are teachers who would look at where I am now and, and be amazed. I mean my father was a teacher at the school so he had an academic side to him. And my first degree was in computing science and I did a sandwich degree. I was fortunate enough to go and work for a company in Germany, which was a government research organisation. I started reading around various sort of bizarre subjects within computer science and got hooked on something called functional programming and went back to the university and did my final year and then after that I had a proper job lined up but I didn’t want to do that I wanted to do research, I wanted to do my own thing, something that was interesting and I had in my mind that, that the way to do that was to go on and do a PHD and that’s what I did. Throughout the career I’ve been fortunate enough that  the longest I’ve spent in any particular aspect in my career was 8 years and which is not a great deal of time if you think of people for companies for 35, 40 years you know they fall into a company when they could leave school and leave when they retire. I’ve done lots and lots and lots of different types of things and each time there’s been a learning aspect to it. I had always bought a lot of pots, glassware and you know various works of art and things. I started doing an evening course about 4 or 5 years ago and wasn’t particularly good at it either when I got there and all of a sudden things seem to click and to be able to make them it was just a revelation really. This is how I intend to make a living, it’s not a very good living I must admit it’s, you’ll never get rich from it. Unfortunately I’d got to a point in my career where things had started to click and made a bit of money and just worked out that I could stop and start doing something else instead. My parents were very, very, maybe and that’s because they enjoyed what I was, they liked the choices that I’d made perhaps. If I’d gone, if I’d decided to be a potter at that time maybe they would have pushed me in another direction. And going on and doing a PHD I know they were, they were very proud of me and, and pleased that I’d done that. But there was absolutely no pressure there at all. I followed the route that I wanted to follow. I mean most of the mentors that have come recently that decision to move from one career into another came from working and talking with, with other potters basically who convinced me that it was time to make that step and I was ready. It’s a nice life, it’s very, you know cyclical life of making and glazing and firing and then clearing up and then going back to that. So there’s, there’s definitely a routine but within that routine there’s a lot of freedom, which I enjoy. The biggest problem with pots is making money. I’ve always got the old career to fall on I think if I run out of money then I can always go back to what I’ve done before.

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