Research Coordinator
Fidelity International

Katrina B

00:00:04 My name’s Katrina B, I am a Research Co-ordinator here at Fidelity, and that basically means that I support four Analysts, four Research Analysts, and I help them with their day to day arranging of meetings, complex travel, expenses, and any ad hoc tasks that they ask me to do. I really enjoy the role that I’m doing now. Within the role I get to do a lot of additional training, and I’ve just started to be involved in the interview process for new candidates. I get to go on training courses, and I also have just become involved in the mentoring process that we have here. So there’s a lot in addition to the role that I get to become involved in, and develop personally.

00:00:55 I don’t think I really knew what I wanted to be when I was very young. I think the interest in the ocean and eventually Marine Biology came maybe at A level stage. I knew the subjects that I was interested in, and kind of looked at them in a way that I could take them forward. So I knew that I was interested in Biology and Geography, and so that’s where I started. I knew from GCSE that I wanted to go onto Uni, so I knew that I had to pick the relevant A levels to get me into the course that I wanted to do. I knew that I enjoyed Biology, and I wanted to pick A levels that were associated with Biology, and that would get me the points that I needed to go on.

00:01:49 I ended up only getting two A levels, I needed three, at the time, to go on to University. I actually got onto the course that I wanted to get on with just two A levels. They actually allowed me onto the course with less points that was needed, so I was very lucky. There was about an hour standing when I was picking up my A levels where I was thinking – OK, I need to rethink my future. Do I go and do the foundation year before going on to University, or do I have a complete re-think? My A level Sixth Form Tutor actually phoned the University for me, and said that I’d got the place. So – it was fine, it was fine in the end!

00:02:41 I went back to live at – I went back to live at home, and I joined up with the local job agencies, and they got me a job in a media advertising company just down the road – and started to enjoy the office environment, the social aspect, the working to a deadline and getting things done. And so the prospect of going and working on my own, or with a smaller group of people in a lab, didn’t – it didn’t really matter so much.

00:03:21 I think if you speak to most people that you went to school with, their journeys aren’t what they thought they were going to be at 16, or 14. They certainly have been through all sorts of different journeys, and not necessarily academic. They – completely different to what we thought we were going to be doing at school. The journey is absolutely important. The life lessons that you learn along the way, the experience that you get whether it be through work or through education, they’re invaluable, they’re – and most of them are great fun – so it’s definitely – definitely valuable.

ENDS