Ex-Graduate talk!
- Kaden
- May 2, 2025
- 4 min read
On the 3rd of April 2025, I attended a talk hosted by my university by 6 ex-graduates of the Fashion Communication and Promotion and Fashion Marketing and Business course. I was very excited to attend the panel talk as all the guests were on my course and have entered different career paths. Hearing about their different journeys was very inspiring, as it almost alleviated my feelings of pressure of needing to know what I want to do right now and having a whole 10-year plan. Although everyone’s contributions were very valuable and interesting, there were 2 talks that really stuck out to me.
Ana Corona was an international student at NUA who is now a project manager at Dazed magazine. It was fascinating to hear from someone who was working at a company that we’ve been studying and using in projects and someone who prefers not having a large presence online. One of the main things that I took away from her was to make the most of your spare time. If you are someone who has great time management and is able to have lots of free time, you need to make the most of it. Being proactive is something that is incredibly important in this industry as things don’t just fall into your lap. She spoke about the importance of LinkedIn, a platform designed to showcase your professional growth and achievements, where future employers can see your qualifications and skills, and how those have been applied. Ana gave pointers of posting often with hashtags and engaging visuals, making sure you give credits and tag those you’re with and connect with as many people as possible. Another tip she gave which is not specified to LinkedIn, was to say yes to everything. Attend events. Do Internships. Network. If you’re someone who struggles with confidence in talking to new people, or going to somewhere knew, Ana swore on ‘fake it til you make it’ as if you pretend you’re confident, then eventually you won’t be nervous for meeting new people or attending unknown events etc. It’s important to try and get your name out there and show off your strong suits and skills, as everything is a seed in your future, you never know where a chat with a stranger at an event, or a few weeks internship, or online course may take you. Also, nothing is permanent. Where you are right now is only temporary, and is just one chapter in your journey to where you’re meant to end up.
Another thing that stood out to me from her talk was the fact she doesn’t actively promote having a large platform on social media or a big personal brand. As a project manager, it isn’t essential to have that social media presence. Although she recognises that other roles may require a big personal brand, it was nice to see that not everyone in the industry needs that platform, which alleviates the pressure of having to have everything established already.
The second person that really stood out to me was Kelly Acheampong. Kelly is the founder of Undiscovered, a platform which showcases smaller clothing brands through social media, events and a magazine. Kelly gave us another talk earlier in the year that deeply inspired me, and I ended up writing a blog about his talk in Unit 1 of my course. When I saw his name on the talk, I was extremely excited to hear what he had to say. Although his role is similar to Ana’s in respect to leading a team and communicating with clients, as he’s in charge of his own business and has to create content for his brand and magazine, he must have a personal brand as well as one for his company. Ana spoke about how her role doesn’t require having an open platform, but Kelly advocated for creating a personal brand. Some best examples he gave us to help us do this were to take inspiration from musicians. A lot of musicians have a large personality online as they must be unique to everyone else to generate a following. Another tip he gave was to document everything. Creating content on the challenges you’re facing, things you’re learning, anything you’re doing, and showing your knowledge on the current ins and outs of the industry can really resonate with an audience.
Most of the speakers said that we should be realistic and then set our expectations for our future. However, Kelly believes that we should set high expectations for our future in order to motivate us to reach those goals, and how a little bit of delusion can go a long way. He also added that another way to stay motivated to reach your targets is to hold yourself accountable. If you see yourself not making any progress or not hitting those smaller goals, then you must take accountability and start taking action.
I would like to add a special mention to Sam Quench who works at Adidas. It was really helpful to hear some of the valuable things he had to say like how we need to make the most of the amazing facilities and opportunities we have at this university. During his time at NUA, Sam was fixated on working for Adidas and so made all his projects about them, which meant he had little experimentation outside of the brand. Although he does now work for Adidas, it’s important to keep an open mind and make the most of the opportunities here as people aren’t always so lucky as to land their dream job straight after graduating. His contributions were very insightful, especially as my marketing report and physical brand asset project was based on Adidas.
Overall, I’m incredibly grateful to have been able to attend such an insightful talk with ex-graduates who were recently in the same position as me. It was relieving and inspiring to see all the speakers so passionate about their current occupational status and seeing how different all their journeys were. This has given me lots of ideas for where my degree could take me and how I could discover new paths along the way.
Adidas. “Adidas Official Website UK | Sportswear.” Adidas UK, 2025, www.adidas.co.uk/?msockid=36754c179daa65711461591f9c11644a.
Dazed. “Dazed & Confused Magazine | Fashion, Art, Music, Film, Ideas | Dazed.” Dazeddigital.com, 2019, www.dazeddigital.com/.
“UNDISCOVERED.” UNDISCOVERED, 2016, www.undiscoveredmag.com/.
Comments