Project Manager
Vodafone

Beth P

00:00:03 My name is Beth P. My job is a project manager and I work for Vodafone in the service creation and delivery department, which is part of technology, so we deal with IT technology projects.

00:00:22 I really loved school. I used to really enjoy going to school every day because I always felt like it was such a fantastic place with all my friends and we all used together and it was so lovely. I liked quite a few of the subjects, particularly at GCSE level, but I would say my favourites are the ones that I went on to do A levels in, so that was history, geography and English. It did help with the teachers that were in those particular subjects, particularly the two history teachers I had, I used to really enjoy their lessons and just found them really interesting, and I think that really helped.

00:01:02 Well, my university experience was probably different to a lot of people’s because I didn’t go away from home. I went to university where I lived. There wasn’t really ever any question that I wouldn’t go to university. I think I still felt quite young and definitely didn’t feel ready to go out and start working at that point, so it was kind of almost a natural thing that I would go to university. So in the end I did a history degree, and really that was just a decision through speaking to my teachers at college, and also my parents.

00:01:38 And the advice that they gave me was just to go with something that I enjoyed because I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and they said the most important thing is that you enjoy the subject and that you can do it well, and that should give you the motivation to get through university and to actually do all the work that’s involved. But obviously I wasn’t living in halls of residence so I didn’t have that whole rounded social experience, but I really enjoyed university and did meet a lot of people and make a lot of friends, but the benefit, I suppose, was that I also got to keep my social circle of the people I’d been to school with and lived in the same area as me, so I suppose in that respect there was plus and minus points to doing that.

00:02:26 After I graduated with my degree, I was then starting to think about what is it that I really want to do now with that degree. I could see in the paper there was loads of job adverts for various IT jobs, and I was thinking ‘Why didn’t I do something more IT related at university,’ so what I decided to do at that point was to go back for a one-year… it was a fast track HNC back to college, it was in business IT, and I really enjoyed the course, actually. It was so different to doing history. It was much more hands on, much more related to a work environment, and it really helped me. I managed to get a job before I’d even finished my HNC, so as soon as I did graduate I could go straight into that.

00:03:18 My mum and dad have been really supportive throughout my whole life really. I think from then they’ve always wanted me to do what would make me happy and they’ve never really tried to steer me down any particular path. As long as they know I’ll be happy doing what it is I want to do then they’re really supportive of that. They try to boost me up and say, you know, ‘You can succeed in this. You’re really good at that.’ That’s really nice because obviously that helps to give me confidence as well to take on new challenges. So, yes, they’ve been really great.

00:03:53 End