Even though many of our graduates will have progressed in their careers since completing a case study, they are still of interest to students who wish to gain an understanding of the world of work.

Lecturing in the History of Opera, leading seminars in the history of music, supervising at undergraduate and post-graduate level. In 2012-13 I was also managing the History of Music courses at undergraduate level. I now have pastoral responsibility for 20 students. This job takes about 2 days a week. I also work freelance as a singer.

The rest of the time, I work as a singer, and write about music. I also have 2 children.

I get my children (10 and 12) up, give them breakfast and either my husband or I take the younger one to school. Some days I pick them up from school and look after them from 3.30, other days my husband or the childminder will do this so that I can work a full day.

About 2 days a week, 30 weeks a year, I do my work for the RCM. This includes: teaching small classes and 1-1; meeting the students for whom I have pastoral responsibility; preparing lectures and seminars; marking essays and drafts of research projects; meeting my colleagues to discuss and refine the course, or discuss particular students.

I try to practise singing every weekday (I also sometimes have a Sunday singing job). I generally have a performance or two coming up to work for, and if not, then I try to make something happen. This may involve starting a new collaboration with another musician, or raising funding. For example I I am currently commissioning a new piece for voice and string quartet, for which I am raising funding.

I also do some academic research. At the moment, among other things, I am working on a project for BBC Radio 3, to research the life and work of a Viennese woman composer, Johanna Müller-Hermann, whose works Radio 3 are planning to broadcast.

During the day I will almost always practise singing for around an hour (I am active as a professional singer). I will also spend time preparing my lectures, or working on my academic research. If it is a teaching day, I will cycle to work and give an hour's lecture with slides and audio examples. There is also administrative work and marking associated with my job. If I am preparing for a concert or a lecture recital then I may also have rehearsal with other musicians.

I love music, and particularly classical music, and my job enables me to spend time thinking, talking, reading and writing about it, as well as leaving time for me to perform it and do research on it.

When I started at the RCM in September 2012, I had been a freelance singer, a student and a mother of small children, but I had never worked in a large institution, or been responsible for managing anything, and I found it quite a challenge to work in such a different environment. I also had to write 22 lectures on the History of Opera, with very little notice. It was very hard work indeed, and hard not to short-change my family because of the demands of the job.

I am much more comfortable at the RCM now, but I still find balancing my different commitments difficult, If too much of my life is taken up by administration and child-care, I find that I get very frustrated, but if I take on too many things outside the home, then running family life gets chaotic and stressful.

I trained as a singer (a Master's at the Royal Northern College of Music) and singing is still very important to me. But much of the regular work for singers (chorus work and teaching) I find unrewarding, and I wanted to use my analytical brain, so I started a PhD. The Royal College of Music is a very congenial place to work - my colleagues are interesting and the range of activities is inspiring to me as a musician and a musicologist. My colleagues and superiors have been very supportive of me, and of my work.

Knowledge of music history, training as a singer, experience in teaching. More generally, I need the ability to get on with people, to work out the best course of action, and to balance my commitments.

No formal training, but my boss and colleagues were enormously supportive and helpful.

MA(Hons) Cambridge Natural Sciences. (1989).
Worked as a Chemistry teacher and a science and technical journalist. (to 1993).

MMus(Perf.) in singing from Royal Northern College of Music. (1993-1996).
1996-2000 Worked freelance as an opera and concert singer. Taught singing and worked with children in outreach projects.

2002/3 The Knack Performance skills course with ENO.

2000-2009 Part time PhD at Sheffield. Still working freelance as a singer and in outreach projects. Took maternity leave for the births of my sons (2007 and 2009).

Teaching at Royal College of Music. Still working as a singer. Writing book based on PhD, and researching for Radio 3 project "5 Women Composers".

I would like to go on working at the RCM. I hope to advance further with my singing career and to continue to write about music, in an academic context and elsewhere. My work on Women Composers has been particularly rewarding, and I hope to go on researching in this area, writing about women's creativity and promoting music by women.

Get some teaching experience and publish some papers while you're doing your PhD (I didn't, and it made getting a job or funding much more difficult). If you meet someone you think might help you, be brave and ask their advice (this is how I got my job).

If you want to be a performing musician, be realistic about your chances. There is no shame in having a 'portfolio career' - where performing is only one of the ways that you make a living. You may even find it suits you better. Whatever you end up doing as a performer, remember to enjoy it. It's too easy to get stressed about 'success' and forget your original love of it.

If you find something fascinating, then keep persevering and in the end you'll get somewhere. But be open to 'somewhere' not being where you expected to go.