Business IT Graduate
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Adam Best, graduated from Sheffield Hallam with a Business IT degree.
This article was kindly provided by ROK Student
Current Job: Self-employed Web Designer
A Day in the Life of a Graduate
It’s Sunday evening and fortunately unlike most I haven't got the pre Monday morning blues. Now this could be something to do with the fact that I bought myself a new car this afternoon or it could be that the last two episodes of Lost are on. Or it could be down to the fact that I actually quite like my job at the moment. I didn't think I'd be saying that.
My Degree
I studied Business Information Systems at Sheffield Hallam where I first did some web design (by far the most interesting bit of the course, if not the only thing!). We received top marks for our first project - the scantily clad animated gif we threw in for gratuity apparently impressed our tutor. Anyway, after a couple of years learning dribs and drabs of web technology I got myself a placement for the third year at a small media firm in the Midlands. I was able to live at home and travel in as it was pretty local which should have enabled me to save up plenty of money for the last year, however after two years of student living it’s hard not to make up for lost time!
Importance of the Placement Year
It was my placement year that really put me on the right path to where I wanted to go. I learned so much more there than I did during my course. Although I had a lot of freedom there I did a lot of self-learning. The year was pretty fast paced and things were always changing so I often had to say something could and would be done even if I didn't know how to go about it. I was brought into the company to look after their entire web needs and we began offering my services as part of their service. Initially I did a lot of in-house web work and began learning Photoshop, Quark Xpress and other print technologies from the very talented graphic designers there. After hundreds of hours using software you begin to get pretty good at it! I soon realised that being able to create good digital design combined with the wide knowledge of web technologies I was learning was quite a powerful and handy resource to have. I headed back to University with something tangible, something I could use and something I wanted to develop.
Did I always want to work in IT?
I started to do a little freelancing work when I left for my placement company and started to realise I could probably do something like this when I left. Originally, I thought I might go back there but as time went on I was warming to the idea of working for myself. When I graduated a friend put me in touch with someone who needed a website. I wasn’t sure if I could do it but one thing I took from my placement year is that I could learn how to do it. A little more work came in and I did a few favours to get my portfolio up so I could start to approach people and offer a service. I put a website together to showcase my work, put a small ad in the local paper and set up a pay per click campaign on Google. There is plenty of work around but you have to be prepared to go and find it. I thought being young might work against me but in this industry I think it’s a big advantage. There were times early on when I thought I might struggle to get work, I looked at the competition around the area and found I could afford to undercut quite substantially and often offer a more personal service. You can't underestimate what it does for a customer to make them feel like you have their full attention. Businesses rely on networks, none can survive without them and it’s the ability to enter these networks that’s crucial. By providing a quality service to the right customer can do wonders, making small sacrifices for one customer can lead to long term benefits, there’s nothing like referrals to bring in work.
In the future
I've found myself getting quite comfortable, maybe a little complacent in what I'm doing at the moment. Within the next 5 years I'd like to have found offices so I can step up my game a little and more importantly find the right people to work with. Hopefully I'll find both of these organically before that time. A major benefit of working for yourself is the flexibility you have and the openness you can have towards offers and opportunities.
The only downside is that I'm £14,000 in debt with the student loans company. However if my career continues as planned hopefully I won't have to worry about that debt much longer.
Most importantly, if you're working from home never put the TV on and stay out of the fridge!
