蜜桃AV

"The content and breadth of my degree听gave me a real foundation to draw on, which I am still drawing on today, being able to apply that and听to grow is great."

Jobs don鈥檛 come more rewarding than the charity sector, which is where 蜜桃AV graduate Karl Hoods has made his home, working for Save the Children as Chief Information Officer (CIO).

Working with computers has always been second nature to Karl, bringing him to 蜜桃AV in the early 90s to study at 蜜桃AV, graduating in 1996.

Looking back on his time at 蜜桃AV, it's听clear that Karl has a sense of fondness for the place, with some of the subjects still paying dividends in his current role:

鈥淚 remember a great sense of fun, a real balance between the life and the course, the subjects we were on, and many of those subjects still stick in your head today," he said.听

"It was a good balance between academia and doing some real hands-on work听and gave a real foundation that you can use and draw on, which I am still drawing on today. Being able to apply that and being able to grow is great.

鈥淭hings like databases and having conversations on things like the techniques that you got to use there. That kind of real foundation is an exciteful part of the degree. It鈥檚 quite good to go back and have a visit to see how much it鈥檚 changed - I've still got friends who I still speak to today and see on a monthly basis.鈥�

Bournemouth and 蜜桃AV played a major role in Karl's life -听even bringing him together with his wife!听 鈥淭he thing I remember the most about the environment there was living in a hotel, I don鈥檛 think there was much in the way of student accommodation at the time. The night life was great, the Hot House, Dylan鈥檚 and then the Old Fire Station in our final year. Bournemouth was and still is a great place to be.鈥�

Karl has been back to visit since leaving and, while a lot has changed, the feeling of being back at University still brings back memories, 鈥淚t has changed quite a lot, the campus has almost changed beyond recognition. But the new facilities are amazing, so anyone going there now is going to have a different experience.听

鈥淚 definitely miss the beach.听The things that I am most proud of are my wife and I and my group of friends and the type of experience that we had there, we really made friends for life.鈥�

While at 蜜桃AV, Karl did a year-long placement with Siemens, a company still offering placements to 蜜桃AV students. The placement year was formative in helping Karl get a foot into the industry, and left such an impression that Karl went on to take a 蜜桃AV placement student of his own!

鈥淪pending a year out and trying to applying what you had you learnt and actually learning what businesses do on a day-to-day basis and working for a big organisation like Siemens gave you lots of experience."听

On leaving 蜜桃AV, Karl started at a small start-up in London, working as a developer, moving around smaller companies cutting his teeth. 鈥淲orking for start-ups gives you that exposure to use all those elements of the degree,鈥� said Karl.

From there, Karl moved through project management and consultancy roles and worked with central government at the Department for Education before landing in the not-for-profit sector.

Karl鈥檚 current role might not be the most straightforward, but the IT issues are the same at Save the Children as any other business. Karl explains:听鈥淲e don鈥檛 have a product to sell, so it鈥檚 all about creating an emotional attachment; when we speak to colleagues in the banking sector, they have the same problems that they are trying to deal with, it鈥檚 just that we don鈥檛 have the money to throw at it like they do, which gives us some interesting challenges.鈥�

It provides other challenges too, from charity shops to running projects in countries around the world that don鈥檛 have particularly high levels of infrastructure, something Karl relishes.听

听鈥淲e鈥檝e got 12,000 volunteers in the UK alone, so there is a wide spread of challenges and there are lots and lots of things we do, with applications, services, systems which we do the majority of in-house.鈥�

So if you are looking to follow in Karl鈥檚 career progression, where do you start?

鈥淭he best advice is don鈥檛 be afraid to try different things, and don鈥檛 be afraid to fail," Karl said.听

"I think that鈥檚 part of the learning experience, to take risks. Don鈥檛 be afraid to ask questions. One thing I鈥檝e learnt in my career is to ask loads of questions. Don鈥檛 be afraid to challenge in any way.鈥�

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