Danielle Higginson, BA (Hons) Rural Business Management, Barony

“The flexibility that SRUC offered was kind of what drew me and most of my class. I came to pretty much all the open days that were available, I liked the campus and I got on well with the staff and just decided that was going to be the best option for me”

When Danielle Higginson left school, study was the last thing on her mind. She wanted to get into the world of work, and took the first opportunity to come her way. That led to a six year stint in the world of HR, which went well until one fateful day, when her employer suddenly went into administration,

“I had a bit of a panic of ‘what am I going to do?’” the 28 year-old said. “I had no qualifications and so I thought I’d better go back and study and here we are. I had always had an interest in business through my parents, and I thought I’d study then work in HR again

“But over time I've realised that I'm kind of interested in more of the general business side rather than specifically the people management elements of it.”

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Though she had come back to study, she still had a full time job however, to support herself and her partner. And when a proposal came, there was then the simple matter of planning a wedding too,

“I was working full time, I didn't really get on campus much for the whole third year and then when I wasn't working, I was trying to organise the wedding stuff and then trying to fit in the coursework as well and didn't really get to stop” she said.

“I had my wedding in June last year, which was a challenge. I hadn’t really thought it through, it means that everything is sort of happening at once, exams, planning, you name it. So yeah, don't make your wedding date in June when you’re a student!”

None of this held her back however, despite her time pressures she achieved a first-class honours, and also found through her study a passion for entrepreneurship. This led to her taking part in the SRUC Sustainability Start-Up School,

“Growing up, my parents always owned their own businesses and I think that entrepreneurship is always something that I sort of had an interest in and I think again that probably drew me originally to study in business” she said.

“My dissertation that I did this year was around entrepreneurship education. So looking at sort of how it's delivered across, mainly across the region down here.

“I really enjoyed the Sustainability Start-Up School. The guest speakers were really good. One of them was a previous SRUC student. He really went into detail about the course which was really interesting.”

Now that she is through, has passed her course and is on the other side however, there’s one thing that she is proudest of,

“To be honest, it's just sticking it. To have done that when I never even intended to go this far, I'm just quite impressed with myself.”