Ayoola Adeniji

Although my current career has not been determined by my Psychology degree, I do feel that a lot of the skills I attained or cultivated at university have been extremely useful in my current work. At university I was tasked with juggling multiple modules’ work at the same time with various overlapping deadlines. This would be done while simultaneously trying to keep up with sport which I played throughout university as well as maintaining an active social life. University was where I truly learned how important it is to organise your schedule appropriately to make sure that you are able to effectively complete multiple tasks.

Furthermore, I am still really interested in the topic of psychology and although I am not practicing it as I initially intended, I now have the opportunity to cover stories related to Psychology and mental health. A lot of my knowledge for these types of stories come from the modules I undertook while at university, which allows for the types of questions I ask when pursuing stories around mental health to be more precise and well informed.

Post 16 Education: AS level: History; A Level: Biology, Psychology, Philosophy & Ethics

Higher Education: BSc Psychology

Why did you want to study Psychology?

When I was in year 11 I really had no idea what I wanted to study in university. I was disillusioned to most regular subjects like Maths & English and was leaning most likely to a topic like biology. However when I saw the options that were available for A-levels I stumbled upon Psychology and realised that this was a subject that had a good blend of science and maths but at the same time was something new that I could actually pursue as a career, so I decided to apply to university to study it further.

Ayoola’s experience as a student

One of the things that is uniquely good about Loughborough is that there is the opportunity to have a go at so many random new sports and activities that you would never have tried otherwise and be coached at an extremely high level. In my second year at Loughborough I decided to give American Football a go and got the chance to be trained by coaches who also coached the GB national side. As well as this, despite being in a small market town the university puts a lot of effort into making sure students have a really enjoyable social experience investing a lot of time and money in hosting a wide array of events at the union.

The only advice I would give, although a bit cliche, is to really try as many things as possible, the facilities at Loughborough are often some of the best at any university in the country and you are unlikely to have the opportunity once you leave to try some of these things - so get involved!

Ayoola’s Career

I am currently a second year Digital Journalism Apprentice at the BBC, working with the BBC Newsnight team. Despite studying a Psychology degree I realised after I graduated that I was keen to work in the media industry. I made the choice to start my own blog as well as starting a podcast with a friend looking at life in the UK from the perspective of young Black British people.

I then saw the scheme advertised online via the ‘BBC get in’ social media page and decided to apply. After three stages and an assessment day followed by a one on one interview I managed to secure a position on the course.

My day to day job at Newsnight has changed over the time I have been here but has primarily revolved around securing guests to appear on the show for one on one interviews or as part of panel discussions on an array of news stories. I have also had the opportunity to pitch my own stories and produce my own news packages for the show on stories that were close to my heart.