Aimee Fearns

• Year of graduation: 2021
• Current job title: Associate Consultant
• Current employer: incling Ltd
• Industry sector: Online qualitative market research

I chose to study at UON because when I attended an open day the staff were so friendly, it seemed like everyone knew each other and I felt it would be a very collaborative experience. When I was initially looking at the University, they were still building the new campus and we were the first student cohort to move in, which was very exciting!

I was also drawn in by the opportunities for extra-curricular activities such as societies (many of these are free!) as well as the chance to take part in other course-related events and trips. Sadly, as I was studying during the Covid pandemic, many of these plans didn’t materialise, but the University made great efforts to find alternatives.

One of the aspects of the course I enjoyed the most was taking part in the more exploratory elements, where I could research what I wanted to around the topic. One of my favourite topics involved completing my own qualitative research through interviews and focus group testing with other students. I didn’t know it at the time, but this created the building blocks for my career.

My absolute favourite part of my course though was completing my dissertation on the experiences and challenges that older women face in the Dengie Peninsula. Conducting this research during the pandemic was such an eye-opening experience and I’ll always look back on how much I learnt.

From an extra-curricular perspective, I was the Secretary of the Geography Society in my third year. This included planning society events, talking to younger students about the course, and supporting them with their studies (whilst meeting them in the pub, obviously!) Also in my third year, I was the Geography Course Advocate, which involved going to events with the wider course team. This enabled me to discuss real changes that were actioned by the lecturers, and it felt great every time I could go back to my peers with the improvements we’d made. These extra-curricular activities were a real benefit to my career prospects, as when I was looking for employment after university, interviewers loved to hear about the additional things I’d taken part in – even if it’s just to have something to chat about at the end of an interview, it’s great to have something on your CV aside from your studies.

My course itself has been a massive help to my career. As I’ve gone into online market research, the techniques I used during my studies have been vital to my career development and writing many reports and assignments during my course helped me to learn how to do these things quickly. In such a fast-moving industry, you’ve got to stay on top of your workload and clients, and my degree really helped me to do this – I’m a very organised time planner now, which really improved during my studies and has been great for my career. As well as this, delivering many presentations at university has helped build my confidence to lead calls with clients and colleagues, whilst being able to debrief my findings to many corporate clients, and having the confidence to guide them in their brand changes.

As soon as I finished my degree, I started as a Community Manager at incling and was promoted in under a year to an Associate Consultant, my current role. Now that I’ve been in this role for nearly a year, I can see how I’ll be able to progress further within the company and within market research more generally.

The advice I’d give to undergraduates interested in this career path is that you’ve got to be organised and have confidence in yourself! Also, for jobs at my level, at least a degree is needed, and many researchers also love you to have another language when you’re working globally.

Studying this course was nothing like I expected – in the best way!