Élise Westbury-Jones

My inspiration to study at university was because I want to work within the computer science field. I felt strongly that a university degree would significantly help with my career goals.

Edge Hill University campus definitely stood out! I first saw Edge Hill as an advert on Instagram and absolutely loved the photos of the campus and facilities. The course stood out to me because it covered a mixture of both digital forensics and cyber security.

The University and campus have a personal touch. The lecturers recognise and know their students well. There are lots of opportunities to get involved with events at Edge Hill, such as helping on open days, attending craft evenings or movie viewings, and there’s plenty of societies and sports, so everyone is able to get involved.

My favourite thing about my degree is that the content is a mixture of networking, security, and forensics so I’ll be able to explore different career paths. We do quite a bit of lab work with this course, which I find incredibly interesting and gives me hands-on experience.

The lecturers are very helpful and have a wide knowledge of their subject area. They have office hours each week where students can go for extra help. A few lecturers also run their own clubs that students can attend, for example a Tech Women Club and a Cyber Security Student Club.

My degree has provided lots of opportunities. In my second year, we were able to have mock interviews with recruitment staff at large organisations. This gave me real-world interview experience and I feel this really helped me with securing my sandwich placement year at Gymshark.

Edge Hill was extremely supportive through the application process for my sandwich placement, and offered any help they could for the interview and assessment centre stages. My placement at Gymshark was truly invaluable and showed me real day to day operations within a cyber security team of a major, global e-commerce brand.

I believe this degree will enhance my employability because it doesn’t just focus on one area of computer science. I have gained a wide variety of knowledge and experience. My placement will also help with employability as I have been able to use what I have learnt in university and apply it to real-world scenarios.

When I graduate, I’m hoping to work as a cyber security analyst. I also want to travel more, and possibly move abroad in the future.

The advice I would give anyone wanting to study at Edge Hill University would be to definitely come along to an open day, to really get a feel for the campus and hear about the course. Speak to some of the current lecturers and, talk to as many current students as you can, to learn more about their personal experiences and the university journey.

I think it’s very important to visit the universities you’ve applied to, to see what the facilities are like in person, and to also think about if you could see yourself studying there. Three years is a long time to study somewhere, especially if it’s far from home, so you want to make sure you get the right vibe from the university as everyone wants different things from their university experience.