Jessica Nichols

In Year 12, I looked into a lot of IT degrees, however most of them had a strong focus on Maths, which I didn't enjoy at high school. When I found out about the BIT course at a careers evening I was convinced that the BIT was perfect for me.

There is more of a focus in this course on a combination of IT and Business, which is extremely important as IT is integrated heavily into practically every company today. The BIT allows me to have a holistic understanding of IT, by providing me with experience in more technical fields such as Programming and Networking, as well as more business orientated fields such as Requirements Gathering and Project Management.

My first industry placement was at Unilever, a Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) company. Although I had only completed one semester of university, they gave me lots of business-critical work to assist with and I felt like I was making an important contribution to the company. Further on in my placement, they sent me to New Zealand to gather requirements for a project without anyone realising that I was a student. I think I must have done a good job during my industry placement, as I now work part-time as a Business Analyst at Unilver whilst completing my second year of university!

You don't have to be a 'nerd' to do IT. I am an extremely social person and am on the executive for the Bachelor of IT Group (BiG), a club run mainly by BIT students. We host a variety of 'non-nerdy' events throughout the year, such as cruises, balls and parties.

I know that being a BIT will give me a head start when I start looking for graduate positions as the industry placements the course provides are an invaluable experience that recruiters look for when selecting graduates.