Christiana Sodamola

Finance MSc

With her eyes set on setting up her own financial consultancy service, Christiana left her career in Nigeria in search of more skills and experience by studying a Master’s degree.

"I decided I wanted to study a Master’s after finishing my undergraduate degree and coming into the working environment. Despite having a job with one of the best banks in Nigeria for two years, I realised I needed more qualifications to be able to move up the ranks within my field.

Studying a postgraduate degree at BCU has been a really good experience so far. There’s a great sense of community here, thanks to the lecturers being easy to access and talk to I’ve been able to get involved in quite a lot of things on campus and the extra-curricular activities are good. I particularly love studying in Curzon library – it’s amazing! I think it is the best library I’ve seen.

I’ve changed a lot since I first came to BCU. I had an amazing opportunity to join and become the president of the University’s finance and investment society. Being part of the society was invaluable to me as it gave me the opportunity to widen my leadership skills. I was able to connect with experts from the finance industry– who I naturally would not have met without coming to BCU. This helped to build up my network and expand my contacts, as well as helping to boost my confidence in what I was doing – I feel like I have grown a lot.

I’ve taken advantage of BCU’s other services such as Careers+ - they see my face a lot! They’ve helped to mentor me and advise on how to improve my CV and create cover letters to apply for jobs, which also helped me gain a variety of transferable skills.

I’ve found it quite difficult to manage a work-life-study balance at times and I can feel overwhelmed with the workload. I’m still figuring out how to manage and balance this, but I’ve helped myself by preparing mentally. I am a very organised person and I plan my time well – I always know exactly when I have to go to lectures, go to work, socialise, and that helps. Luckily, being the president of my society has almost pushed me into making putting time aside to ensure I am still socialising, which helped to balance my activities. I think it’s mainly a case of prioritising tasks, and knowing which ones are the most important at that moment in time.

My ultimate goal would be to start up my own financial consultancy service. I know I need to get more experience to get there, which I’m hoping to gain from my Master’s and I’m looking to work at a firm in Birmingham when I graduate.

If I had to give advice to anyone considering studying a postgraduate degree, I would say that a Master’s might look like a lot at first, but there is a lot to gain. I have a saying, ‘nothing good comes easy’ – you have to work hard for everything. Even if things don’t seem easy at the time, if you are sure about your career and know that this is going to help you get to where you want to go, then it is worth it. It helps you get the extra knowledge, exposure, network, confidence that you need.

To me, 'I AM BCU' means fun, liveliness, and an overall beautiful experience."