Physical Education, Sport and Health | Graduate Careers | University of East Anglia (UEA)

Hello my name is Jake Berney and I'm a graduate from the Physical Education  

course and now I'm currently studying my  master's in strength and conditioning.

My name's Joseph Skeet I'm a UEA Physical  Education alumni and now I currently work  

in the student support department here at the  university as a student support coordinator.

Alongside my Master's I'm currently  working at Saracens women's rugby  

club and so that's just about  ensuring that they're performing  

optimally particularly in their  big games, such as the Six Nations.

My roles are really varied working for  student support department at the moment,

no two days are the same, so one day I can be writing a funding

application to get some money in to develop a new programme for the students

and staff, another day I'm out refereeing a football tournament out on the pitch, another

day I'm getting to go and watch student rugby cup finals at Twickenham.

So it really is such a brilliant role, no two days are alike and I love that variety about my job.

During the physical education course I was fortunate enough to take

part in a variety of different internships, working with Leicester

Tigers youth athletes and kind of setting their strength and conditioning sessions.

I had the opportunity to also work with the UEA Athletics Club, as well as the

Norfolk United Netball club, so again, it provided me with that coaching

experience necessary to kind of take the next step. So the modules

that I enjoyed most were 'partnerships in physical activity' and 'sports

psychology' and 'health promotion'. I knew I didn't want to be a PE teacher

when I came to UEA but I wasn't sure what  I wanted to do and the content of those

modules made me realise I really wanted to get into organising events in

getting people active, increasing participation in sport, so they gave me

lots of background knowledge about how the sporting landscape works but also

the theory behind and the psychology behind why people do sport. My most

memorable experience at UEA was probably performing in the Outdoor Championships

at Bucks, so that was with the athletics team and that was kind of a really good

atmosphere in terms of you know egging each other on to

perform to our best, we were also able to go out afterwards so that was a real

good social side to that. My best bit of advice and what I heard within my first

week of doing the degree here at  UEA was to say yes to everything,

so obviously you need your degree but you also need lots of experience and

qualifications around your degree to make you stand out as well, so I realised

what roles I didn't want to do by all the different volunteering and

everything else that I did and it made me narrow down what I did

actually want to do, so take on as many opportunities and experiences as you possibly can.

Be proactive, go out there  and seek internships and we

have fantastic facilities on campus that can help you achieve that, such as career

central, they're able to help you with cover letter writing, CV writing and

even personal statements and so I do really recommend getting after that.