Zoe Hurrell
- Course
- Human Biology BSc
- Subject area
- Biosciences
Following graduation I have secured a job at Pacific Life Re, where I work as an Actuarial Analyst. My role involves the use of analytical and problem-solving skills to predict the financial impact of future events. On the graduate scheme, I rotate around various teams such as pricing or R&D while studying to become a qualified actuary.
I developed a strong interest in epidemiology and statistical analysis throughout my degree and wanted to combine this with a passion for maths and problem-solving. After my industrial placement, I started to explore different fields – and the job of an actuary seemed to provide an interesting mix of both.
The different statics-based modules during my first and second years helped me to gain a basic understanding of statistics which I then built upon during both my placement and final year where I was able to put it into practice. This was highly valuable as my current role is purely based on statistics and data analysis.
All the teaching and support at º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ has been extremely useful in my career. Producing a poster for my dissertation and my nutrition coursework particularly allowed me to practice communicating complex information to different people which is a huge part of the role of an actuary. Additionally, the support provided by the careers network allowed me to practice each stage of the application process and provided insightful feedback on how to improve which was fundamental to receiving a job offer.
My placement was at AstraZeneca where I worked as a clinical study administrator. This helped me to develop my soft skills including interpersonal communication, leadership and collaboration skills. These are all essential for any career and helped me to secure my current graduate role.
Additionally, I’ve found having professional experience to be highly valuable when applying to graduate schemes. I had no official extra training or work experience, however I did do a couple of LinkedIn courses to help develop my coding and Excel proficiency.
In my own time, I used YouTube and º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ’s library resources to gain insight into economics. Doing these extra tasks helped to both show interest into the field of work as well as helped me to excel during the different application stages.
My advice to other students would be to start looking at different jobs that might interest you early to ensure you don’t miss any deadlines. Applications take a lot of time to complete well, so see it as an extra module in final year and plan your time to fit this in.
Also, apply for whatever job you are interested in and don’t feel limited based on your degree. Instead think about what skills you have developed and how these could be used in the role you are applying to.