Leesha Daniells

BA (Hons) Politics, Class of 2024

I chose the University of Suffolk initially because I come from a small rural area and believed that a city university would overwhelm me. At an open day, both my mum and I were so impressed with the facilities and the care that the lecturers showed to us and other potential students. It was clear that they were passionate about the courses that they offered and they even spoke about career progression at that early stage, which I thought was fantastic.

We had a very small class on my course, which I really benefitted from. Many of my friends at other universities shared lecture halls with 100+ people which had its challenges, but it was so easy for my course mates and I to ask questions or ask for help.

In addition, having completed an activism module combined with a keen interest in women’s rights, I successfully campaigned to be the Women’s Officer at the University of Suffolk Students’ Union between 2022-2024. This opened up many opportunities for me, including collaborating with local community organisations, having meetings with the town council, organising events, protests and engaging in media interviews. All of these additional skills, that I learnt outside of my degree, were very attractive and relevant to my employer. I don’t believe that my degree single-handedly would have led to me being offered this role, but that the experience that I gained due to my degree, did.

In my experience as a part-time officer within the Student’s Union, I was able to make changes at the university without little backlash of ‘this is the way it’s always been’, that you would expect from older institutions. At Suffolk your voice is heard and it matters.

I started at Suffolk in 2020 on the BSC (Hons) Sport Science course. I struggled learning online and decided halfway through the year that I didn’t want to continue with the degree. I voiced this to my lecturers, and spoke to the Head of Social Sciences who let me shadow a politics class to see whether I’d like to switch. In 2021, I started Politics which I enjoyed so much more, and I was so appreciative that my previous lecturers and new lecturers did the most to ensure that I would settle into a new course.

Following the completion of my degree, I have been working as a Community Engagement Coordinator for East Sussex County Council. Throughout my politics degree I learnt about the role of local government in national politics and without having studied this, I wouldn’t have considered applying for a role with a county council. Transferable skills that I learnt during my degree such as research, political language, analysis and planning have been very useful in my job.

The main positive for me was that I met so many like-minded people at Suffolk and had friendship groups in multiple places. I had friends in social sciences, on the netball and badminton teams and at the SU. There were lots of opportunities to meet different and welcoming people at Suffolk.