If you study astronomy, journalism or business are you forever committed to a career in the industry? We met with some people who say the world is still your oyster after graduation…
Computer Animation to Tattoo Artistry
Kirstin Stevenson is a 25 year old from Holytown nearGlasgow and has jumped from one career straight into the other. Initially, Kirstin attended Glasgow’s prestigious School of Art but decided it maybe wasn’t the place for her. “I’ve always been an arty person and at university, I studied a Masters in Computer Animation at the School of Art,” says Kirstin, “I realised quite soon after graduating that the computer animation industry wasn’t for me. I applied for jobs I wasn’t really passionate about and unsurprisingly nothing ever came of them.”
Things are very different now for Kirstin as she embarks on a completely different career path – tattoo artistry. “There are similarities between computer animation and tattooing – it’s still art. It’s still a creative field that requires patience and artistic talent but the majority of animation is completed on a computer – which is obviously very different from tattooing on skin!”
So, what advice would Kirstin give to someone who is thinking about pursuing a career that’s different to what they’ve studied in university? “If you studied what doesn’t make you happy, don’t force yourself into that career,” she says, “Find something that does make you happy and work as hard as you can to get there.”
Accountancy to Yoga
Scott Rennie has seen and done it all and proves that you don’t necessarily need to follow the career path you initially set out on. “I did a Bachelor of Accountancy degree at Glasgow Uni,” Scott explains, “Even then I was a bit restless and got so bored by my final year that I arranged to do an exchange, so I spent that year at the University of Miami in Florida.”
After working as an accountant, Scott then worked as a police officer, before moving into completely foreign territory in the form of yoga. “In 2005 I qualified as a yoga teacher and taught a weekly class at Kilmarnock College. I then began to see how my life as a cop was, in some ways, holding me back from the kind of exploration of yoga that I wanted to do. So, in 2006 I left my career with the police and started teaching full-time.”
Now that Scott is happy to have found his niche and is a successful yoga teacher, he has some words of wisdom he’d like to pass on to anyone who feels their university course might not be for them. “Listen to yourself, get to know what you really want, and work out what you want to do when you get up every morning. You need to consider what in life is going to make you happy.”
Politics to Primary Teaching
After studying politics at Glasgow University for four years, 23-year-old Danielle Park decided she wanted a change and is now training to become a primary school teacher. “I chose to study politics because I really enjoyed modern studies at school,” Danielle says. “I didn’t have a solid idea about what profession I wanted to pursue. My favourite teacher at school told me to go do what I enjoyed, so I did.”
When she left university and realised a career in politics wasn’t for her, it was her volunteer work that made Danielle realise what it was she really wanted to do. “I volunteer with kids who have autistic spectrum disorders one evening a week. After uni, I chose to work in retail until I was sure of what I wanted to do and after realising that the volunteering was what I enjoyed most.”
Danielle now realises that your degree subject doesn’t have to define your future. “I would tell anyone with a degree they don’t think they want to pursue to take their time to work out what they really want to do before jumping into a job for the sake of it,” she says. “Lots of people are young when they leave university so I would encourage then to try to get as much experience, I would particularly recommend volunteering as it gives you lifelong transferable skills.”
