William Storey

After graduating in July 2023, I was fortunate enough have a graduate job already lined up with Stantec which started in September that year.

I have now been in my role for around 5 months and have worked on a variety of projects in both modelling and monitoring for sites across the UK.

Why did you choose to study Geography at Birmingham?

I chose to study Geography at Birmingham because I felt that the campus was a place I would enjoy spending the years of my degree and I really enjoyed the content of taster lecture I went to and how well organised the taster day was.

What skills/knowledge did you develop at Birmingham the helped you to follow your career path?

My geography course introduced me to a wide variety of topics which was beneficial for me because I had many different interests as a result. This meant that I was able to apply for a large number of different jobs that I was interested in which increased my chance of getting a graduate job.

Through the flexibility of being able to choose which modules I studied, I was then able to explore the topics that I was the most interested in having a career in in more depth. For me this was air quality.

What advice would you give to current students studying on your degree programme?

At the start of your final year of studies start looking for graduate jobs in September. Lots of the graduate roles close for applications in late October/November so be sure to not wait too long to start looking.

I would also highly recommend the final year placement and advanced fieldwork modules, these were the two highlights of my course. I was lucky enough to get a placement with the Canal and Rivers Trust investigating the air quality along Birmingham's canals and went to Tokyo for advanced fieldwork and investigated the impacts of Tokyo's green spaces on the cities air quality.