Luke⁺

While studying at UWE, Luke took advantage of many extra-curricular opportunities, including becoming a PAL Leader. He believes that this experience enabled him to secure a much sought-after work placement with Microsoft and a high profile graduate position with IBM in London.

“The key thing that PAL gave me was confidence and people skills. I was already quite organised, but I wanted to be able to manage people better by listening to them and appreciating their point of view.

“If you’re not confident about what you’re about to say, people are not going to have any confidence in you. I wasn’t a very confident person when I came to university – fast forward one year and I presented at the PAL conference, to 400 people. That was massive for me.

“I don’t think I would have been with IBM if I had not been a PAL Leader. My employer hadn’t heard of the scheme, but it’s a great conversation starter and enabled me to demonstrate that I have valuable, practical skills.”