Nicola


School: The Ferrers School

Employer: Ladies' European Tour

Job Title: Media Official

Qualifications:

  • 12 GCSEs
  • x5 A Levels
  • MSci Geography
  • National Council for the Training of Journalist (NCTJ) - Gold Standard Diploma Sports Journalism


Profile

After leaving school, I attended the University of Birmingham between 2013 and 2017 to study for my degree in Geography. I started doing a BSc and then changed to an undergraduate masters at the end of my second year, which meant I ended up doing a four-year course. While at university, I worked part-time on campus with the welcome week team, on open days, etc. as well as participating in lots of extracurricular activities such as writing for the student newspaper and volunteering at sports events. I worked as a freelance sports journalist during my final two years of studying and continued to do that for a year after graduating. I then enrolled in and completed my National Council for the Training of Journalist (NCTJ) Diploma in Sports Journalism. After that, I worked for a digital sports agency as a multimedia reporter and then as a women's sports and football editor. Finally, I joined the Ladies European Tour in February 2021 in the role of Media Official and have been here for three seasons.

I went to the University of Birmingham to study a BSc Geography as it was a subject I really enjoyed and I was interested in, plus I absolutely loved Birmingham as a place and a university. I completed more physical geography modules throughout my time delving into topics such as climate change, meteorology, wetlands as well as statistic analysis. While at Birmingham, I realised it was possible to change my degree to an MSci adding on an extra year of study. After achieving the correct grades, I switched my degree at the end of my second year and ended up graduating in July 2017 with an MSci in Geography.


Advice to students

Don't be afraid to try new things and change what you're doing. The best way for you to learn what you're good at and what you like doing is to try different things. An easy way to do this is to incorporate extracurricular activities and volunteering into your life, as that can open up doors and also inform you of what works best for you.


Additional Resources

Life as a Journalist