Alice

"Studying Social Research at Goldsmiths was one of the best decisions for my career. I chose it because I believed it would give me the skills required to work in a range of environments; I knew I wanted to do research within the third sector, but hadn’t yet decided beyond that.  

The course gave me such a strong foundation that even before I had submitted my dissertation, I had already been offered a job as the Evaluation Manager for Pilotlight; a small charity that supports other charities to be more effective in their work.

At Pilotlight I oversaw our monitoring and evaluation, designed further ways to measure our work, helped other organisations (and ourselves) to develop a theory of change, and supported other organisations to better measure their impact. After working there for nearly two years, I was headhunted by Teach First.

I now work at Teach First as a Senior Officer for Impact. My main tasks are to help develop our own theory of change (and a theory of change for the education/charity sector) and to measure our work against the Fair Education Alliance’s Impact Goals – analysing the changes on the pupils that our participants (trainee teachers) teach. My role is varied, stimulating and intense, and I really enjoy working for the charity.

My understanding and knowledge of research methods has been crucial for my career. I would not have worked for Pilotlight without it; and I would not therefore be where I am today without it. I would strongly recommend it!"