On 16 July, the School of Education hosted a hybrid careers event for our current MA students, bringing together alumni from a diverse range of courses, who generously offered their insights and guidance, sharing practical tips and useful resources. Their contributions created a space for meaningful discussion, sparking rich conversations that truly resonated with our current MA students.
Our alumni are currently working in various roles, including but not limited to teachers, data managers, school counsellors, PhD candidates, lecturers/assistant professors and are a global community of educators.
By connecting with the alumni further along in their professional journeys in different fields, our MA students were encouraged to explore opportunities, reflect on their goals, and make the most of their time remaining at Nottingham. We hope this event served not only as a source of inspiration, but also as a meaningful step towards future career success.
The alumni who made the time to attend the event are as follows:
- Dr Shun Chen, Assistant Professor, University of Nottingham - MA Person Centred Experiential Counselling and Psychotherapy 2017
- Emily Hay, primary school teacher in London - MA Education 2022
- Stella Lee, school counsellor in Singapore - MA Person Centred Experiential Counselling and Psychotherapy 2018
- Jia’en Jiang, international kindergarten teacher in China - MA Education 2024
- Afiya Riyaz Mohammed, special educational needs teacher in the UK - MA Educational Leadership and Management 2023
- Namra Mansoor, data manager, University of Nottingham - MA Education 2022
- Ying Li, Mandarin teacher in the UK - MA Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages 2023
- Pengjuan Yuan, teaching assistant in the UK - MA Education 2023
- Sylvia Olayinka-Olaniyi, learning systems analyst, University of Nottingham - MA Digital Teaching and Learning 2023
- Xiaoting Guo, PhD Student, University of Nottingham - MA Education 2022
The event was further enriched by the presence of Lucie Whitfield, a careers consultant from the Faculty of Social Sciences. She offered career-related tips and advice, and provided one-to-one consultation sessions with our current students who wanted support and guidance in career and employability.
The event was a great success and we look forward to inviting more alumni, both in person and virtually, to return and share their professional experiences. We believe that their stories have the power to inspire, guide, and ignite ambitions in our School of Education students, and we’re excited to build upon this momentum.
Posted on Monday 28th July 2025