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Alumni Oliver Maher virtually visits Sport students

Alumni Oliver Maher virtually visits Sport students

Over the past few weeks, our Sports students have been able to hear from numerous professionals in different fields virtually. Last week, we were able to connect to one of our former students; Oliver Maher’s.

He spoke to our current cohort about his experience while studying at The Sixth Form Bolton, course information about his degree, examples of his Master’s Degree work, and further information about his role at Everton Football Club as a Recruitment Analyst.

Oliver’s Educational Journey

Oliver explained to our current students that when he started at The Sixth Form on our Sports Development, Coaching & Fitness Vocational A Level course; he believed that his career path was going to be as a coach. However, after talking to his teachers here, they advised that he keep his options open and explore the possibility or pursuing a career within performance analysis as this was of keen interest to Oliver during his studies at The Sixth Form.

Now, he is extremely happy and believes it was the best decision that he made as he thoroughly enjoys working for Everton FC and has high aspirations of working up the ladder.

Oliver shared a lot of honesty with our cohort, explaining that the career path that he is in now takes a lot of time and experience to even get the opportunity to work with such a prestigious football club. As there are numerous students gaining relevant or similar degrees from every university looking to work in his field.

He also shared a lot of tips that will help them to get further along with their career:

“It is important to get good grades as employers will be looking primarily at candidates that obtain a 2:1 (60–70%) or a 1st Class Degree with Honours (70+%). However, the experience is just as vital and you need to start as soon as you possibly can as it makes you stand out from the rest of the competition. I promise you, that the majority of the time, workplaces will choose to employ someone with a 2:1 degree over a 1st Class Honours Graduate if they have more experience.”

Questions and Answers

Our Students:

How relatable is what you studied here to what you studied at university?

Oliver:

A lot of units that I studied at The Sixth Form Bolton such as; Unit 19 Performance Analysis was extremely beneficial as it provided me with the foundation of knowledge I needed when starting my course at University. Alongside this, any Sports Science related course require you to have a good base knowledge of Anatomy and Physiology which are two other units that I studied as part of my BTEC Sports course.

Our Students:

Can you tell us what the importance is of creating new goals for yourself?

Oliver:

I think it’s very important to have goals, because no matter where you are or what you do, you want to achieve all that you can and be the best. You might not always go up the ladder in every workplace but you should aim to.

Our Students:

How hard is your job?

Oliver:

A lot of time and effort goes into my role, and like I said I love what I do and I am proud of what I do. I learned very quickly when I started working at Everton FC that there are really high standards and if you don’t do something correctly or to that standard then you need to do it again. If you are proud of what you do then you should always try to maintain a high standard of work.

Alumni

It is always great to see a previous student return to The Sixth Form Bolton to share their experiences and knowledge with our current cohort. If you are an alumnus and would like to get in touch to update us on your career path or university life, then please contact us at marketing@bolton-sfc.ac.uk 

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