Over the last two months, we’ve been flooded with applications from graduates across the country – all vying for the coveted title of ‘Graduate Of The Year 2016’. You’ve voted for your favourites and we’ve had the mammoth task of going through numerous applications, to finally decide on three finalists for the UK! As part of the next stage, a panel of international business experts at Adzuna will go over these three applications and pick ONE British student to represent the nation in the global final. We know this one’s not going to be easy.
The graduate who proves his/her mettle, wins the hearts and minds of our ‘not-easy-to-please’ panel of experts, will be crowned the UK winner in our global competition and also win a certificate of attainment and an Amazon Kindle to boot!
So, after much deliberation and debate, we’re now ready to introduce to you the top 3 brilliant UK finalists:
Natasha Travers
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Name: Natasha Travers
Age: 22
University: University of Reading
Category: Social
About Natasha: A recent graduate with a degree in psychology, Natasha is hoping to travel the world and do a masters. She thrives from meeting new people and working with them, which perhaps led her to work with the NHS. During her time at university, she volunteered at a local residential home, was president of the Raising and Giving student fundraising body, ran in two student elections, tried a new sport every term, was elected as both course and faculty representative, and managed to hold good grades despite the busy schedule! Post graduating, she’s eagerly looking forward to see what the future holds!
Proudest achievement: Being President of the Raising and Giving Society (RAG) during her final year of University and helping students to raise over £40,000.
Inspired by: My Grandma, because she has experienced so much and always knows what to say and do! She’s my go-to for advise!
Evelyn Muir
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Name: Evelyn Muir
Age: 22
University: Northumbria University
Category: Academic
About Evelyn: Caring, compassionate, selfless, adventurous and passionate – these are some of the words Evelyn’s friends would use to describe her. With a passion for animal rights and gender equality, she went on to study sociology and Northumbria university and graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Sociology. She was also awarded a prize for the ‘Best Undergraduate Student’ for having scored the highest degree mark out of the entire social sciences department. Muir spent a vast majority of her time volunteering with women’s organisations, homeless organisations, and youth organisations – both in the UK and globally. Always up for an adventure – a hike or a bar crawl – she loves studying and hopes to excel in the field of international development and gender relations. Her biggest dream is to contribute to a future world where women and men can enjoy equality in a sustainable environment. She firmly believes that everyone can do their bit, no matter how small, to change the planet for the better.
Proudest achievement: Whilst she was volunteering with a youth and gender organisation in South Africa, she overcame many personal and professional hurdles, as they were teaching young people about sexual health and rape – issues which were high in prevalence in the local community. However, she decided to conduct research on behalf of the organisation and her university. This research was conducted over 3 months, and reached a large demographic of the local community, meaning that Restless Development were able to tailor their programme to the gendered-needs of the community. She was the only volunteer to conduct research. This then became the foundations for her undergraduate degree dissertation, which explored the correlation between Apartheid and gender violations in South Africa
Inspired by: My biggest inspiration is my mum. As a single mother, she is the glue that holds our small family together. She both works and cares for my grandma, and supports us with both love and finance to the best of her ability. She has overcome unbelievable personal tragedies such as a violent marriage, and has supported me through my own abusive relationship. She has been the one example that I can succeed and get through the darkest days. Without this, I doubt I would be standing here today with the degree and future prospects that I have. She is the reason I am a feminist, and the motivation behind my passion for gender issues and development work.
Babatunde Onabajo
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Name: Babatunde Onabajo
Age: 23
University: Kings College London
Category: Academic
About Babatunde: Onabajo is a postgraduate student at King’s College London and is learning about emerging markets around the world through the MSc Brazil in Global Perspective programme. He did a semester at the University of Geneva in International law and graduated from Cardiff University with a degree in BSc Economics. He’s multi-lingual and can speak English, German, Spanish and Portugese; with an interest in technology, politics and travelling. He hopes to be a future Nobel laureate in Economics.
Proudest achievement: Learning German. It’s commonly believed that English and German are virtually the same but that was not his experience at all. Having to learn how to use the dative and accusative cases, memorising the gender of each particular word, understanding how modal verbs change the structure of a sentence, and so forth, was very difficult. But he got there in the end…eventually.
Inspired by: A major person I look up to is Dr. Jonas Salk. He was an American virologist who developed the first polio vaccine. In doing so, he saved millions of lives, and today polio has been eradicated in huge parts of the world. Yet despite having developed a vaccine for polio, he did not seek fame or fortune from it. He lived a somewhat hidden life away from the media and when encouraged to patent a vaccine for polio, he famously asked: “Could you patent the Sun?”
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