OS Careers Forum

The Higher Education department was delighted to welcome back six Old Sennockians from the Class of 2014 to talk to the Lower Sixth last week as part of the Friday 4a series. 

Saul Greenhalgh, Emma Hulston, Elsa Cameron, Lizzie Elton, Toby Hunt and Jennifer Hack are graduates in their twenties and are pursuing a range of careers, and even second careers.

They talked insightfully about their routes from the IB at Sevenoaks to university and then to the workplace. We enjoyed anecdotes about working for Manchester United and Formula 1 from Saul, who studied Sports Management with a placement year (with Birmingham City FC) at Loughborough University.

We heard about working in television production and the part her English degree has played from Lizzie, while Emma, who read Geography at Nottingham, gave an inspiring overview of the role of a sustainability manager at Unilever.

Elsa, who studied law and is completing the ACA and CTA programmes, shared her insights into the daily life of a trainee chartered accountant at PWC and the tenacity needed to continue with study alongside work. Toby presented a genial description of life in a London law firm. He took a History degree at Exeter then spent two years at law school where he worked part-time for an educational charity and managed to work as a ski instructor in Japan for a season.

Jennifer shared how she went from a Modern Languages degree at Cambridge to working as a head-hunter for the financial services sector, and then experiencing a lightbulb moment during lockdown that fuelled her desire to become a property investor and entrepreneur.

It was particularly gratifying to hear about how formative and useful the experience of doing the IB has been for all of them, instilling a strong work ethic and breadth of knowledge, that they draw upon in their daily working lives. The warmth the Old Sennockians have for their old school was very apparent and it is clear how important the friendships forged at Sevenoaks continue to be in later life.

We are very grateful to our panel for taking time out of their busy working lives to help inspire and reassure our current Lower Sixth. Thank you also to Mr Smith for chairing the event.

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