What do you get when you mix international relations, mentoring and diversity together? A career in careers advice, in the case of Monira Ahmed. She is a self-confessed straggler – someone who took a while to find what she wanted to do after graduating. After a series of random jobs, she pointed her interests, transferrable skills and post-graduate qualification towards supporting students from different cultures in higher education. Fourteen years later, she is the proud winner of a national Careers Champion award for her work at the Universities of Central Lancashire and Liverpool. I caught up with her for Learning to Leap’s latest podcast.
We talked about:
- How an inspirational lecture on diversity sparked her career journey to help young people overcome obstacles and succeed.
- The importance of transferrable skills and languages.
- The challenges facing International students in the UK, especially work experience.
- The economic, social and cultural contributions International students bring to university life.
- The opportunities that exist to learn from different cultures within a university setting.
- Tips for being a global graduate.
Monira has a great personal blog called Everything Careers that I thoroughly recommend. There you will find a more in-depth account of what led to her winning her award. You can also pick up on the issues we discussed and more by connecting with her via LinkedIn and Twitter (@MoniraAhmed1).
Look out next month for another stimulating podcast with interesting people in the jobs, careers and employability space.
I agree entirely with Monira’s views about the importance of graduates having a global mindset and her views on the benefits of language learning and the contribution of international students to UK businesses and universities. It was also fascinating to hear about Monira’s career path after graduation involving several “random jobs” as there is often no “linear path to career success”. Her blog post on language learning and careers is also well worth a read.
Many thanks for your comments, Dawn!