Louise Ord

Current Employer/Organisation Name

Exeter College

What have you been doing since leaving Exeter, and what are you doing now?

I worked in hospitality locally as a university student (most notably Cavern and Exeter Phoenix!). As my MA came to an end I was promoted in my role at Exeter Phoenix and would go on to become the “Deputy Manager of Exeter Arts Trading Services”, colloquially the Café/Bar Manager.

When it came time to find a new opportunity I was successful in securing a position as the Learning Resource Centre Team Leader at Exeter College due to my customer service experience, management role, and academic background. Two years into the role they created a new Learning Resource Manager role to create a progression route in my team which I was successful in securing, freeing up my team leader role for an advisor.

I am also co-chair of a steering group for FE Libraries and LRCs to share best practice with colleges nationally, and we run meet ups and workshops at an annual conference about all things Digital.

I have started a Level 5 Apprenticeship through my employer for the Operations/Department Manager Standard to improve my existing theoretical knowledge of Leadership and Management, and to support me in future Leadership opportunities.

Why did you choose this career? And what do you enjoy most about your work?

The career chose me! I didn’t know what I was going to end up doing – and that’s okay! I got a bunch of customer service experience in food retail, cafés, bars, and clubs where I’ve interacted with a variety of different people with diverse experiences, which having a degree in psychology has been really helpful for because it just makes you more aware of other people’s experiences. In my last role my team always told me I was a great manager; for some I was their first nice manager, so I’ve leant into it and I’m seeing where it takes me in the education sector because I think that’s where I was always meant to end up.

I chose this role because I love opportunities to learn something new and in my role I get to work with a range of faculties to provide study skill and digital skill support for students – I wanted to help young people thrive and share all of the things about studying, that I unfortunately learnt a lot of after my degrees, like Notion and Zotero for example!

I really enjoy being in charge of the largest communal spaces at an FE College, there are a lot of challenges to work through but also a lot of opportunities to make a difference. My team staff the college’s main front-facing desks for student support so we are truly in the thick of all the exciting activity, whether that is library services, lending cameras and laptops, selling art materials, or running skill sessions.

I am able to get involved in a lot of activity across the college. Recently I supported another team in distributing period products to our learners that need them and making them accessible in our LRCs; small collaborations like this have a big impact on student experience and it’s wonderful to be part of it.

Overall, I love that I can relate almost anything to my role whether it’s a YouTube video that reminds me of a faculty or the latest AI development in the news, and it keeps me curious and a life-long learner.

What did you enjoy most about your programme and what was the biggest highlight?

I enjoyed being involved in experiments as a participant so you could get a good idea of what was possible for the dissertation.

My biggest highlight was being able to really drill down to some specific modules, I did Discourse Analysis, Work & Organisational Psychology, and Processes of Human Memory (ironically I had to check my transcript for the last one!).

What did you most enjoy about studying here?

The study spaces and green spaces definitely.

Why did you choose to study at Exeter?

It was the best of the ones I liked, and the right distance from my hometown.

What skills and experiences have been most useful for your career?

People skills – I honestly believe that everyone should have at least six months of customer service experience in their toolkit, it will get you so much further when you come to dealing with various stakeholders further on in your career. Psychology is the study of behaviour and development, providing an understanding of individual differences and lending to a holistic perspective. Studying Psychology (and Philosophy) has made me more thoughtful, more aware, more supportive as a person, which gave me the ability to demonstrate not only my effectiveness as a manager but my ability to do the work on-the-ground with exceptional customer service.

Commitment to learning and personal development – there’s not much to this one! Stay curious, don’t think you’re ever above learning anything because your knowledge will get old quicker than you realise!

Report writing, survey design & general research method knowledge.

What advice would you give to a current student who wishes to pursue your career?

Look for companies you want to work for and try and find a role that makes you excited within that company – don’t limit yourself to search terms of a few different wordings of the same job, even if it’s not your forever role it could open up the right opportunity in the right company.

What are your plans for the future?

I want to keep doing things past-me would have thought I’d be too anxious to do! I want to push myself into public speaking opportunities because that’s the only way to get better at it!