How I built my confidence and showed myself what I can do!
Working with ART has helped build my confidence and shown myself what I can do!
While Leoni Lawson was a Business student at Ayrshire College, she took up an opportunity for a work placement with the Alloway Railway Tunnel (ART) charity. Leoni reflects on her experience over the last few years and how it’s helped her move forward with her career.
“I chose the HNC Administration and IT course to sharpen my Office 365 skills as well as learning new ones in the hope that this new qualification would help me get a good job. Two of the subjects I particularly enjoyed were, ‘Web Design’ and ‘Social Media.’ I had never done either of these subjects before and found them fascinating and fun to learn. I am quite an arty person so love to be creative, and learning about these marketing tools really inspired me to find out more.
Lucky for me an exciting opportunity came along to help me develop my new skills. My lecturer mentioned that a local charity was looking for someone to design their website and help out with social media. I met with one of the trustees – Bill McKinlay at Ayrshire College, and he told me what kind of style he would like and the information he wanted on the website. I used my new web development skills and created a functioning website for ART.
Working with ART has helped build my confidence and shown myself what I can do. I enjoy helping others when I can and this project, although stressful at the beginning of the project while we were getting the website set up, was definitely worth all the hard work. The ART team are fantastic to work with, and it has been a good way to meet new people and build my network.
Since I finished my studies, I got a job as an HR Assistant working from home. I have never done this kind of job before as I have always worked in retail. It is so different, but I really enjoy it and I am always busy which I love.
The course I completed has opened doors to employment I wouldn’t have been able to access without my new skills. It’s given me opportunities like the work placement and both these experiences have definitely helped me increased my confidence and feel more prepared for employment.
My advice for future Business students is to take any opportunities that come along as you never know where they might lead to. I am still volunteering with the charity even although I have finished my course and started a new job. It’s not easy balancing my work life with my home life as a young mum but there is a feel-good factor when you are volunteering, and you know you are helping to make your community a better place. There is a great satisfaction from being involved with the project from the start and seeing it though to completion.”
Leoni studied HNC Administration and IT at Ayrshire College http://www.ayrshire.ac.uk
