To celebrate some of the amazing Black women we have working and studying at the University of Bath, we're putting together a series of interviews "Saluting our sisters". These success stories celebrate the pride we have in the diversity of our University.
In the second of our series, Sophie Miles (Equality and Diversity Co-Ordinator) spoke to Marketing Officer Caroline Thomas.
SM
How long have you worked at the university and what does your current role involve?
CT
So I've worked at the university since, I think, November 2009, which seems like a lifetime ago. My current role is marketing officer for the central marketing team, which means I get involved in all things Marcomms, from emails to videos to interviews with students. It's a very varied role.
SM
How did you get into the field of marketing and communications?
CT
I did business studies at college and from that I really enjoyed the marketing aspect of my business studies course. I love the whole people bit of it, understanding what makes people buy. I think I actually probably enjoy the psychological side of it more than I do the actual implementation of the marketing, but yeah, so I kind of like quite like that whole concept of encouraging people to do things hopefully they want to do! So that's how I got into marketing. I started out doing stock control for publications back in the day and then I gradually moved my way into the full on marketing.
SM
And I think and what has helped you the most navigate your career path?
CT
I think what's helped me the most is becoming professionally qualified. I did my CIM, my Chartered Institute of Marketing qualification, and my IDM (Institute of Direct Marketing) qualification, and I think it enabled me to put the theory into practice at the same time as being a practitioner. I was looking at theory behind it and I think the combination of the two helped me immensely and I would recommend doing the professional route to anybody thinking of doing marketing because it just it just gives you a lot of the theories and obviously it's very different when you put it into practise. I found that having both has really helped me.
SM
What are your long-term goals?
CT
I think to continue doing something that I get satisfaction from, I get immense satisfaction from my job, particularly the student parts of my job. So where I get to interact with students and they put into words what we need them to convey. That's just brilliant. When I ask them to do something and they come forward with something and hopefully it's persuading other students, then that's the bit that I really, really find satisfying.
So in terms of the future, I want to just continue doing what I do and feeling satisfaction from what I do. And I think at the moment and since joining university for that matter, I've always been satisfied with the work that I do.
SM
The theme of this year's Black History Month is saluting your sisters, so if you could give one bit of advice to your Black sisters, what would it be?
CT
I think the one thing I've learned from doing the Elevate programme is to keep striving. Before I started, I was in a bit of a black hole, in the sense that I was just resigned to my fate. I was just doing my job, but Elevate opened my eyes and made me realise, actually I need to persevere. I need to have more resilience. I need to pick myself up too.
I think that's the one thing that I would say to my sisters is don't give up. Basically, do not ever give up on your dream. It might not happen today. It might not happen tomorrow. It might not happen for a month, but you have to just keep persevering and keep banging on doors and keep letting people know that you are worth more.
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