From shy student group member, to committee leader, graduating with First Class Honours and business start-up owner, Rachel Kirkham shares her inspiring Staffordshire journey
From shy student group member, to committee leader, graduating with First Class Honours and business start-up owner, Rachel Kirkham shares her inspiring Staffordshire journey and recalls how the support she has received from the university and students' union has helped to engineer her success.
"When I first started at Staffordshire University, I was very anxious and timid around people. I lacked confidence when presenting in front of others and was hesitant to share my ambitions and ideas. Since joining Staffordshire, I have not only built a network of people, friends and mentors whom I cherish and respect wholeheartedly, but I also feel that I have grown enormously as a person.
When I began my first year studying Robotics and Artificial Intelligence at Level 4, I had no programming experience. I came from an engineering background, but I had little confidence in my own abilities and struggled to build or find a community where I felt I belonged.
I joined the Engineering Society and bit the bullet by taking on the role of Communications Officer. I wanted to learn new things alongside my fellow society members, but I also wanted to challenge myself and grow as a person. What I found was one of the most remarkable and inclusive groups of people I could have hoped for. Day by day, they helped me build my confidence and encouraged me to get involved.
The following year, I decided to take on the challenge of becoming the Society Leader. To this day, I am filled with pride when I look back on that experience. Not only because of how much I grew personally, but because I could see the growth in the people around me too.
I was also incredibly lucky to have two wonderful people running the society alongside me. My Communications Officer, Ki Talbot, became a close friend, and our friendship has continued even after university. My Finance Officer, Chris Mead, also became a huge part of my life and is now my partner; we even had the opportunity to graduate together. I genuinely could not have run the society without either of them. They were not simply members of the committee; they were people I could rely on, learn from and share the experience with, and I will always be grateful for that.
You didn't have to be an engineering student, and you didn't need any existing knowledge to get involved or learn something new. That was something we strongly believed in. We actively encouraged anyone who simply wanted to learn or take their first step to come and join us, particularly those who might have felt intimidated or unsure about getting involved.
Many people who had no background in engineering or prior experience still enjoyed taking part in our workshops. I think that was largely because of the welcoming and inclusive environment created by everyone around them. As a community, we shared our knowledge, built friendships and encouraged one another to learn, creating a society that we could all be proud of.
I never went into leadership with the intention of earning awards or recognition. I wanted to create an environment where people could learn, meet others and feel welcome. During my final year of running the society, it went on to receive both an academic award and a charity award. I was incredibly proud of those achievements, but I never saw them as being down to me alone. They represented the collective effort of everyone involved in the society, and that made them even more meaningful.
After my time as Society Leader, I had the opportunity to undertake a research placement with AidenVi. This became an incredibly valuable part of my development, particularly as a programmer. I was able to work with classification and machine learning in a research environment and, for the first time, apply the programming and technical knowledge I had been developing at university to a professional setting.
The experience was invaluable. It not only helped me understand machine learning and classification in a much more practical way, but also gave me an insight into what it is like to work on technical problems in an industry and research environment. Having that experience behind me made a huge difference to my confidence as a programmer and helped prepare me for the challenges of my final year.
Finishing my degree with First-Class Honours was an incredibly proud, but emotional, moment. It was the result of a huge amount of hard work, stress and countless sleepless nights. But it was also made possible by the people I was surrounded by — my friends and the fantastic mentors who cheered me on, encouraged me and supported me throughout my degree.
I also attended GradEx with the simple intention of networking, meeting new people, maintaining connections and expanding my horizons. I certainly wasn't expecting my little robot, S.O.N.A.R., to come away with third place in the awards. That was a wonderful surprise and another moment that made me realise just how far I had come since starting university.
Now, I am continuing that journey by joining a Master's degree (Mechanical Engineering and Sustainable Energy Technologies), where I hope to advance my skills further, apply it towards my Robotics degree and take on new challenges. Alongside my studies, I am also setting up my company, Nova B Ltd, a robotics and engineering company focused on agricultural robotics, sustainability and mechatronics — something I never imagined I would be doing five years ago.
One of my ambitions for Nova B Ltd is to create more placement and graduate opportunities for people studying programming and engineering in Stoke-on-Trent. We have already taken our first steps towards this by opening a placement opportunity for a Level 5 student to take a gap year from her studies and join us as a Junior Software Developer. We have also created two graduate opportunities: one for a Bachelor's graduate working as a Full Stack Developer, and another for a Master's graduate working as an AI Software Engineer.
Looking back, I don't think the person who started university five years ago would have believed where that journey would lead. I certainly never imagined that I would graduate with First-Class Honours, continue into a Master's degree, gain research and industry experience, or begin building my own company. It makes me incredibly proud to see how much I have grown, not only academically and professionally, but as a person.
My time at university has opened the door to countless opportunities, but more importantly, it has helped me grow as a programmer, an engineer and as a person. I now feel ready to take on bigger challenges and continue pushing myself outside of my comfort zone.
I wanted to share my experience not only to encourage people to pursue their ambitions and dreams, but also to encourage them to make the most of the opportunities around them.
You never know what might happen. That much is true. But if you never try, you will always be left wondering what could have happened if you had."
We're so proud of Rachel and her achievements and wish her every future success
If you'd like to follow in Rachel's footsteps and take the lead in our Engineering Society - drop us an email at studentengagement@staffs.ac.uk and start engineering your own leadership path.
