Author: aspiringprofessionalshub

We started the Aspiring Professionals Hub to be an information hub for aspiring professionals to share their experiences – achievements, mistakes, successes, lessons learnt - with like-minded individuals. As aspiring professionals ourselves, we are aware of the challenges faced by other aspiring professionals in their career journey. Our aim is to provide a forum where we can engage with our readers and have discussions about Careers & Employability, Education, Entrepreneurship and Skills – related issues.

Career Focus – eSports Industry

September 8, 2017September 9, 2017by aspiringprofessionalshubLeave a comment

What do you think of when you hear eSports? If you’re not in the computing or gaming world, maybe not much. In this article, Marcus Clarke from Computer Planet shares some insight into the range of careers options available in the eSports industry? Enjoy!

Climbing the career ladder is no small feat. Luckily, the modern world has created a new industry for jobs within the eSports market. This multi-million dollar industry revolves around competitive video games that are played online and streamed to thousands of fans internationally. The industry is becoming lucrative and is opening to not only professional gamers and tech-savvy roles, but also for typical career roles in finance, marketing and design.

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Getting Into…Neurosurgery

September 8, 2017September 9, 2017by aspiringprofessionalshub2 Comments

An important part of our mission here in the APH is to demystify the world of work and careers. We often take for granted how difficult it can be to access information about what is required to succeed in a particular discipline. This is why we routinely interview aspiring professionals and share their personal stories of the steps they took to excel in their careers. Recently, Amara had the opportunity to interview Dr Andrew Alalade, a neurosurgeon with a subspeciality interest in skull base tumours and discuss his #MyCareerStory of building a successful career in Medicine in the UK as an international medical graduate.

APH: Please can you tell us about your educational and professional background?

AA: My school education started in the United Kingdom but I moved back to Nigeria and studied Medicine at the University of Ibadan. I returned to the UK to work on rotation as a Foundation Year 2 doctor. My neurosurgical residency training was done in the London North Thames rotation and I had the privilege of training in some of the United Kingdom’s top neuroscience centres. I am a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, England (FRCS SN) and a Fellow of the European Board of Neurosurgical Societies (FEBNS). On completion of my training, I obtained my Certificate of Completion of Training (CCT) in July 2016. The CCT confers the title of specialist Neurosurgeon at Consultant level, which gives permission to practise as one in the United Kingdom.

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Academic Writing – Aims & Objectives Revisited

September 8, 2017August 11, 2019by aspiringprofessionalshubLeave a comment

You are writing a research proposal/thesis/paper where you have been asked to state the aims and objectives. Can both words be used interchangeably? When is it appropriate to use them? In this article, Nadia Anwar revisits the debate around aims and objectives and sheds more clarity as to their appropriate use.

‘Aim’ and ‘objective’, the two ever confused words, terms, lexical items, research markers, or whatever you may prefer to call them, are as ambiguous conceptually as their tagging is. Being a novice in research (which I believe I will always be because of my aversion to being called an ‘expert’), I happen to have a very inquisitive nature about how words become a norm and attain an established status, especially in the alleyways of the academic world. This, rather annoying, and somewhat debilitating curiosity, as it constantly diverts my attention to academically most ignored or termed as worthless pursuits, led me to make a distinction between the overused and overly done words frequently employed in research thesis, proposals, dissertations, and projects etc.

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#UniAdvice – Never too late or too old to learn something new

September 8, 2017August 11, 2019by aspiringprofessionalshub1 Comment

Editor’s note – Widening access to higher education to the so-called ‘non-traditional’ students has become quite an important target for Universities in the UK. It is known to improve the outcomes and opportunities for people who would not otherwise get such chances. On the Aspiring Professionals Hub, we like to share inspiring stories about people from diverse backgrounds with interesting and inspiring stories about their experiences or career successes. In our latest ‘Reflections’ article, Anna shares her experience of higher education as a mature student and hopes her experience would serve to inspire others.

I am 46 years old and in my second year of an MSc degree in Social Work. I was one of 5 children raised by both parents who struggled financially due to unemployment. I left school at the age of 16 with two standard grades- Music and Art. I then went onto work in a shoe shop under the Youth Training Scheme (YTS). At the age of 17 in 1988 I started working in an electronics factory, this led me to working in international companies. However, as the electronic industry began to decline, with many people facing redundancies, I decided to take the step and go to college where I achieved a national certificate and higher national certificate (HNC) in social care in 2005.

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Navigating a #Career as a Makeup Artist – Lessons Learned

April 7, 2017September 9, 2017by aspiringprofessionalshub1 Comment

It’s near spring and this year has been busy so far but we are very pleased to be back with our readers. In this article, Christelle Pellecuer, expert make-up artist with tremendous experience and high many high profile clients and events across the UK shares her experience as a make-up artist and lessons she learnt along the way

Did you know? – In 2015 alone, the beauty industry generated $56.2 billion in the United States, with hair and skincare growing very fast and projected to generate revenues of near $11 billion by 2018.

Christelle was born in Madagascar, raised in South of France and now lives in the UK. Christelle has been working as a makeup artist specialised in the fashion and editorial since 2010. Christelle has worked on many different aspects of the fashion industry including music videos, TV shows, magazine shoots, product launch and fashion shows. Her work has been published in several magazines for example The Resident, a South West London magazine.

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