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Diana Docwra

Diana Docwra

00.02 It’s Diana Docwra and I’m a beauty therapy lecturer here at Cambridge Regional College. It’s basically preparing the students for industry, getting them used to doing their treatments, the facials, manicures, waxing. Getting them used to dealing with outside customers and sort of getting used to really working on people that necessarily wouldn’t be put in that situation, you know, people doing facials and waxing and things like that, and really getting them up to speed with what’s happening in the industry as well as you go along and updating their skills.

00.32 I’ve always wanted to do it. Sort of when I first, when you get your first for Christmas and you sort of play around with it and I sort of really thought, “Yeah, I really want to go into it, look into it with a bit more detail and look into other treatments that are out there as well. When I left school I came to Cambridge Regional College straight away to do my beauty therapy qualification here. Straight away I didn’t have any questions, straight away I wanted to go and do it.

00.59 A teacher when I was at the college studying my beauty therapy, she was always very motivated and you could tell she enjoyed doing what she did also. And I think I always thought, “Oh I’d love to be able to pass my skills on that I learn over the next few years to students as well.” And because it is forever changing, but she always gave you that motivation and inspiration and she enjoyed her job and that made you really want to think, “Oh, yeah, I think I can, I’d like to do something that like as well.”

01.33 I left college as soon as I’d finished my qualification and went straight into a beauty salon. I worked there for four years, worked my way up to head therapist and I thought I wanted to see a bit more of the country and what the industry could offer, so I ended up working for Clarins in the UK as a national account development team going all up and down the country, Birmingham one day, London the next, Scotland, into health spas, salons and accounts just to update them in product knowledge, treatment knowledge and just helping them with their sales and things as well.

02.08 And then from there, a colleague of mine who I worked for at the salon came to the college as a lecturer, and during the conversation she said, “Oh, I’m thinking about being a lecturer.” And I said, “Oh, I’ve always wanted to do that.” And then she said there was a post up and then here I am.

02.27 I think I’ve been quite lucky through coming straight from college into a job whereas everything seems to have just sort of naturally progressed. I did think when I came into teaching, the qualifications that you have to do is your teaching, you have to do them along side your natural working day, so it can be sort of hard work as well. You do think you’re never going to get it done, but you find a way and you do it because you want to do it and it is a good career move and it pays off in the end as well.

02.57 The thing that motivates most within my job role is basically really just sort of getting the students up to what the industry standards are these days. When I qualified, although then you had the standards, they aren’t, they weren’t as sort of developed as they are now, and looking back there are so many things that they want you to be aware of and do that it’s actually progressed over time, that you’ve really got to be motivated to stay up beat, up to date with the industry and what requirements and things like that are going on out there with the developing treatments. Because they never stay the same for long.

03.34 I think the most valuable lesson is always just do what you feel happy with doing. If you don’t feel happy with doing it, then let somebody know. Especially within beauty because it is quite nerve wracking and daunting. If you let somebody know there’s always somebody there that will help you, you know, get over it or even just help you out. And you don't have to do anything you don’t to do want to do either.