Amy Hesketh

• Year of graduation: 2024
• Current job title: Graduate Geotechnical Engineer
• Current employer: JPP
• Industry sector: Engineering/Consulting

Since I started secondary school, I was interested in geography, and I continued that interest throughout my GCSEs, A-levels and degree. One of my favourite aspects of the subject is that you learn about a wide variety of topics in both human and physical geography, so what drew me to the course at UON was the variety of modules offered in the second and third years, allowing me to tailor the course to what I was most interested in. I’ve always leaned towards physical geography, so after my first year I was able to pick up more physical geography modules, eventually leading me to start my career as a graduate geotechnical engineer.

As well as being able to focus on physical geography later in my degree, the other aspect of the course I enjoyed was learning about and gaining experience in different GIS software such as QGIS, ArcGIS and CloudCompare.

The skill I gained on my degree that’s most useful in my current role is report writing – it’s become one of the most important aspects of my role as we need to communicate our findings to our clients in a concise and comprehensible manner. Teamwork and communication are also key – for example, in my current role, each person in our department has more in-depth knowledge about a specific topic, so communicating that knowledge effectively allows everyone to learn something new almost every day and make further progress in our careers.

As part of one of my third-year modules, I had to complete a 30-hour placement within a job I could realistically obtain after graduation. I decided to apply for the Biodiversity Records Digitisation Project with the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust, which involved digitising scanned handwritten plant and animal sightings from the Northamptonshire area from the 1950s-90s into a spreadsheet, to enable employees to search for records within a database rather than looking manually.

This placement was my first insight into the world of work – I learned about the biodiversity of the Northamptonshire area and proved to myself that I’d developed valuable skills over the course of my degree that would help me with my career progression in the future. It also enabled me to develop key employability skills – my knowledge of Excel improved quickly, and I was able to increase my experience of writing formal emails to potential employers. My current role uses Excel for different tasks every day, so by becoming more familiar with it beforehand, I was able to prove that I wouldn’t be intimidated by the workload I was expected to take on.

My main tip for getting the most benefit from your placement is to talk to your lecturers if you’re stuck or unsure about it or talk to the person representing the company hosting your placement as they’ll be able to answer any specific questions you may have. No questions are silly questions when you’re just beginning – don’t be afraid to ask the person leading the placement to reclarify something they said earlier, or even if you’re just curious about something and want to learn more.

Throughout my degree, I gained more skills and experience in both verbal and written communication, which gave me the confidence to reach out to my current employers about their graduate position and led to me kickstarting my career.

As I’m only a few months into my career, my main goal for now is to learn as much as possible about the industry and the role my job plays in the sector. In the future, I plan to continue with my studies and pursue a master’s in geoscience research.

The advice I’d give to undergraduates interested in this career path is to be willing to learn. In a graduate role, you’re not expected to already know everything but if you show that you have the capability and willingness to try something new, potential employers might be more inclined to take you on.

Overall, my experience at university has been wonderful and I’ve gained so much during my time at UON.