Reuben Valpy-White
Current Employer/Organisation Name
Natwest
What have you been doing since leaving Exeter, and what are you doing now?
Worked at Nationwide for 1 year in UX design team, Worked at LV= in Digital Team for 6 months. Completed 10 month UX design certification by CareerFoundry.
Why did you choose this career? And what do you enjoy most about your work?
Allows me to improve digital products through gathering qualitative data. I love the problem solving, creative and interpersonal day to day requirements of the role. I love seeing the result of my work bringing tangible benefits to people’s lives through better, intuitive and usable digital applications and experiences.
Please tell us if you were a member of any societies, groups or sports clubs?
Law Society, European Law society, ELSA, Law football captain, boxing club, muay Thai club, Welsh society.
What did you enjoy most about your programme and what was the biggest highlight?
The support I got from my tutor and lecturers in creating courses allowed me to follow my interests.
What did you enjoy most about studying here?
The great facilities and student services that are available. The support from great tutors and lecturers throughout the course.
Why did you choose to study at Exeter?
Great reputation, course and facilities.
What skills and experiences have been most useful for your career?
Abilities to analyse complex arguments and data to solve complex problems. The ability to empathise with clients and customers to understand the problems they face in order to solve the right problems. To ask better questions and think about problems in a more advanced way.
What advice would you give to a current student who wishes to pursue your career?
Focus on choosing a degree that teaches you the skills you want to develop and match with your skillset and natural ability. Don’t think that you are tied into one career because of the degree you studied, use the degree to develop wider skills that will benefit you throughout your life. Reach out to people in different careers and gain insight about these from practitioners in different careers, there are a lot of highly engaging and lucrative careers especially in tech that doesn’t get enough exposure compared to traditional careers like lawyer and engineering but often have lots more opportunity, impact and career fulfilment.
What are your plans for the future?
To continue working and developing my skill sets within User experience design and to start teaching and mentoring younger UX designers.
