Since graduating in 2018 I've worked in a few different marketing roles and now work as a Social Creative and Copywriter at McCann in Manchester. Something that would have been an absolute dream when I was back answering briefs at 2am in my halls! I've even been to Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity to compete for the UK in the Young Lions.

I still talk about my university experience all the time and carry the tools I learnt with me throughout my work. The real-life skills were immediately transferable, from the speed at which we now have to work to the presentations and professional practice experience. We always worked with briefs that mimic the ones I work with now and the lecturers were always pushing us - just like my creative director does! We were taught such a range of skills too, like graphic design and project management, so now in practice I've got so many more strings to my bow.

When I left Uni I felt fully ready to tackle the world of work. It's really helped me to get where I am and thrive along the way.

From failing high school, barely passing college and almost joining the Army, I managed to secure a first-class degree at the University of Bedfordshire with the tremendous help from the lecturers and the technical support staff.

During the first year I lacked confidence and with the help of Susan Brandreth (Sue) I was able to understand how to program and ace my courses. Sue also encouraged me to join the BCS: Student Chapter which accelerated my confidence, growth and network. Sue is the reason I am who I am today and helped me and so many other students achieve more than we could ever dream of.

By hosting events through the BCS: Student Chapter I was able to collaborate with more lecturers who allowed me to host events with them and setup other societies together. These events were a massive help to me and other students to accelerate our skills. I recommend everyone to attend as many events as they can as it helps a lot.

The dedication of all CST staff members is just incredible, you can find some of them in their offices even after 5PM until 10PM sometimes and they’ll always give you help. During my second year, one of the lecturers, Carlos even stayed with me and few other students until around 4AM in the morning just building robots and learning together.

I initially started my course without a placement year, but with advice from all the lecturers and technical support staff, I changed it to do a placement year with Travelport. This was the best year where I learnt so much because I got to experience every aspect of computing and it ten times my growth like no tomorrow.

Because of the legends within the technical support staff, Robert, Sandra, Karen and others, I was able to fly through my final year completing my units with ease as they always had the resources available to support me and my friends. For my final year project, I built an autonomous tour guide, but because of the support of Renxi & Dayou, I just needed to focus on the software and not the hardware. If they did not provide the hardware, then I would not have been able to complete it in time.

One of the biggest advantages the University of Bedfordshire has, is the sheer number of opportunities waiting for every student to come grab them. Just don’t be afraid to ask questions, don’t be afraid to explore and most importantly don’t be afraid to fail, cause that’s the first step to success; especially in a CST course. Because of these opportunities, I was able to land a job as soon as I graduated with my current company Surelock McGill.

Without the University of Bedfordshire I wouldn't be where I am now. They organised my first job after graduation as a runner on a BBC documentary and I've gone from job to job ever since.

In 2024 I graduated from the University of Bedfordshire after completing the course Computer Games Development with Professional Placement BSc (Hons) with a First class honours degree.  I was lucky to have done networking during my time in University, and now after graduation I am able to show off the games I created during my time there which also helped massively, as I was able to land two jobs back-to-back.

Now I work both at a video games company called FireSlug Studios with a team of 30+ like minded individuals creating fun games, as a company we’re just releasing our first major game on the platform Steam, and with them I have gone to several events to both market the game as well as the company. I plan to continue working with this company as we grow and all advance our skills together while creating games.

The skills I learned during University also set my up for my second job where I work as a college lecturer. In this role I teach around 100 students at Level 3 BTEC. In these lessons I get to pick my own lesson plans and show the students how to code in C# and also how to create full working games inside the Unity game engine. 

Thanks to some of the more advanced subjects I learnt at University I’ve helped push some gems of students to a university level of programming, showing them features such as Terrain Generation, Online Multiplayer, and even principles on machine learning AIs for games.

To anyone looking at going to the University of Bedfordshire to study Game Design I would highly recommend it. The lecturers there all know what they are talking about and provide current and up to date information on programming and how to make games. My favourite unit provided was the 'Disruptive Technologies' unit, where you have to create a game using a piece of new technology, for this I got to use 'Haptic Gloves' that the university provided to create a game.

The last thing, if you get the chance to, I would highly recommend talking to the careers team about professional placement, It’s a huge boost to your CV as you get amazing opportunities to work in real companies for a year. The careers team managed to help me land a position working at Walt Disney so it is always worth a shot, with that said good luck to any new or current students and I hope you enjoy your time at the University as much as I did.

After completing Level 3 in Vehicle Maintenance and Repair at college, I decided to take a bold step and continue into further studies. That is when I came across the University of Bedfordshire.

After starting my course, I had to battle a lot of self-doubts as I had stepped away from the typical academic route to pursue a more practical/vocational study, but stepping back into the academic route, I was not sure how I was going to tackle the amount of mathematics, research and self-studies that I heard was involved as an engineering student.

With the help of the outstanding Lecturers I met in my course, I not only defied all odds and self-doubts to achieve a 1^st class, but also secured a job as an engineer before graduating.

If you are someone debating on whether this course is for you or not, I will urge you to confidently take the first step, to an exciting journey of bettering yourself.

Once on this journey, the destination is success and there is no looking back.