I have always known I want a career where I can work with people, make a difference and be creative. I never actually heard of Occupational Therapy until after I had graduated with my BA in English! I wasn't in a position to start retraining until 2017 by which time I was living in Brighton, and was fortunate enough to get a place on the 2-year MSc here.

My responsibilities vary according to the job I'm doing - as I'm now a student again I have a few part-time roles to support myself financially.

In my role as Personal Care Assistant to a multi-disabled woman I'm responsible for storing, drawing up and administering medication (around 12 medications three times daily), supporting my employer with her various health needs throughout the day and helping her to live as independent a life as possible.

As a self-employed Sports Massage Therapist my responsibilities include ensuring my insurance and qualifications are up to date, communicating clearly with clients, maintaining my equipment and managing the finances of the business.

I'm also on the bank for a community reablement service, where my responsibilities as a Support Worker are to work with adults in their own homes around tasks such as medication, food preparation and personal care. I am responsible for ensuring clients are safe, monitoring their health, following recommendations from Senior Support Workers, Physiotherapists and Occupational Therapists, making accurate records in their care plans and encouraging them to be independent with activities of daily living as much as possible.

At the moment I am at University for around three and a half days per week. Alongside this I work in my Care Assistant job for five hours per week, sometimes picking up other hours when I can. I also volunteer for a local befriending scheme where I take lunch to a local older person once a week, sitting and spending time with her. She is a former Occupational Therapist, now in her 80s, and great company!
I also recently gained a Sports Massage qualification and work for myself from home.

My first full-time job after university was working for a swimming magazine as the Advertising Coordinator and Editorial Assistant. My main responsibilities were selling advertising space and assisting the Editor with editorial, including writing some feature articles which I really enjoyed.

From there I moved to work in sports development for four years (2010 to 2014), working for the governing body and the County Sports Partnership, supporting local clubs to develop their volunteer workforce, access more funding and create and implement development plans.

Following this I decided to move away from Sheffield and came to live in Brighton. I worked for a local travel company in the operations team, then in a similar role for a company providing after school clubs. I also did some nannying, as I was considering training as a primary school teacher. Whilst doing research into teaching I decided it wasn't for me, and came back to the idea of Occupational Therapy which had been in the back of my mind for around nine years!

I decided to gain experience in healthcare, both to check that I liked it enough to commit to a career change, and also to gain vital experience to apply for the course at Brighton University. I began a part-time Personal Care Assistant for a multi-disabled woman alongside a Community Reablement Support Worker for a local council. This was a big departure for me after years of working in offices, but I learnt so much and thoroughly enjoyed both roles. After a rigorous selection process I was fortunate enough to be offered a place on the MSc in Occupational Therapy course at the University of Brighton which I started in September 2017. I will complete my studies in summer 2019 and can't wait to embark on my new career then!

In 2019 I'll be a qualified Occupational Therapist and hope to begin work very soon after graduating. I'm not sure yet what area I want to go into; I could work in a hospital, a school, in the community or even a prison. Hopefully over the course of my studies I will discover a particular interest within OT. From there I'd like to gain experience and progress within the field.

I would encourage students to get involved in lots of different areas of university life and to take the opportunity to form relationships. 'Networking' can be a scary word and, I think, sounds quite clinical, but really every time you meet someone at university it can be seen as a kind of networking. So many opportunities can be uncovered once you start talking to people, asking them questions and talking about what your interests and passions are. It really can open doors.