St Andrews stories

I'm Anna Brown.

I'm a senior lecturer in management.

I work in the Department of Management in the Business School and I joined as faculty in 2017.

I was attracted to the role at St Andrews largely because I'd been a student here so I'd studied as a postgraduate master student and then completed my PhD in the department and I suppose that gave me an opportunity to get to know and understand the university but also to know the school and my potential colleagues.  

I was really drawn by the ethos of the school.  

We teach and study responsible management and that really chimed with the work that I wanted to do or was doing on craft work and understanding the craft industry but also how people learn and become skilled through various different practices.  

I think also the size of the school was attractive so it's large enough that there's lots of interesting things going on but it's small enough that you can get to know people which was a big kind of draw for me.  

My current role is working as an education and research academic in the Department of Management so as a senior lecturer I'm largely expected to balance teaching responsibilities with research responsibilities and also service and leadership roles.  

Even if we take this month I've been submitting grant applications, writing abstracts for chapters, trying to work on papers and also establishing projects with colleagues in St Andrews and also in Ukraine as a kind of partnership that the university has ongoing on with one of the institutions over there.  

I enjoy working in the department for lots of different reasons I suppose.  

I've got lots of great colleagues, everyone's really friendly and supportive and collegiate and we're a really good team.  

Also every day is different so you're not kind of going in and doing the same kinds of tasks every day.  

There's lots of different things that you can do and a lot of that's the work that you're trying to self-generate as a researcher but then there's also the kind of teaching tasks so it kind of keeps your brain busy I suppose.  

I enjoy working at the university because of the people.  

I've had lots of opportunity to work in leadership roles and also at a faculty level and that allowed me to work across schools and also across units in the university and I think everyone I met was doing an incredible job and really great people and I think having that experience has also allowed me to kind of develop some of those relationships after the role.  

My career at the university has developed since I joined in 2017 and I joined as an associate lecturer which is an education focused academic and since then I've undertaken various different leadership roles and been able to develop my research work and I've been promoted through to senior lecturer and then been able to change tracks to become an education and research focused academic.

I think the leadership opportunities that I've had both at school and institutional level have been really helpful in allowing me to practice those leadership skills and to gain new skills and I've also engaged in quite a lot of the university's mentoring programmes and their leadership programmes which have also helped and I think that also gave me an opportunity to kind of take time out from the kind of day to day stuff to reflect on who I wanted to be as a leader or as an academic even and to think about then how do I put that into practice so those two things together have really helped me kind of shape and develop my career and then I think also the support that I've gained from the school and from colleagues in the school to develop articles and publications and research work, the kinds of things that are going to enhance your research profile and your research career and also being supported to go to conferences and build networks and all of those kinds of things have been really great in the school.

Living in Edinburgh and working in St Andrews is really doable, it's a commutable distance and there's lots of modes of transport that you can take if it's a train or there's subsidised bus that's supported by the university and there's a car share scheme that we can enter into and that I've made good use of.

Also the work's flexible as an academic so I can usually spend about two days a week at home just depending on what my commitments are around teaching and the activities that are going on in the school.

My name is Helen Faulds, I'm the Assistant Director for Library Collections and Digital Services based in Libraries and Museums here at the University.

I came up to St Andrews for a six-month project, fixed-term post and I've been here 16 years.

So, I was attracted to the initial post that I took at St Andrews because I came on holiday to St Andrews when I was wee with my family and had really amazing holiday with my family. 

I've got really good fond memories of coming to St Andrews.

So, when I saw it advertised I thought "Oh, I've got to give it a whirl and see if I can get this post."

Came up, managed to secure the post and I've loved it ever since.

As far as I'm concerned there's no better place to live and work than St Andrews and to really to be able to work for Scotland's oldest university is an amazing thing.

So, in my current role as I say I'm the Assistant Director for Library Collections and Digital Services, but effectively myself and my teams we're responsible for the management and access of all of our print and digital collections and the services that support those.

So, in a nutshell that's access to over a million print books, 650,000 e-books, hundreds of thousands of e-journals and databases. But, I kind of, I don't want to steal something from a supermarket but we're basically if you want it we'll get it for you and that could be, you know, a kind of niche research article from an American university or it could be a book from South America – we will get it for you.

Essentially, we are committed to support in teaching research here at the University of St Andrews, so we'll do whatever we can to do that.

And the other area that I look after is open research. So, it's really, really important to me and my teams that we support scholarly communications and scholarly research and doing it in a way that ensures that it's open and equitable to everybody, so not just here at St Andrews we're really keen to be pushing an open research culture that's global and is accessible to all.

I really enjoy working in libraries and museums and at the University of St Andrews because it's the kind of... the ability to support teaching and research effectively. So, we really care about our staff and students and it's really, really important that we do a fantastic job to support them so they come to St Andrews and have an amazing experience. 

When they walk into the University, I suppose I'm biased, I think libraries and museums is kind of the heart of the University – it's one of the biggest buildings in our little medieval town and it's a fantastic space to work in.

It's also really important to me that me and my colleagues, we work collaboratively not just in our unit but across the University and that we think first and foremost about how we... the things that we do deliver the strategic aims of the University, whether that be access to world-class leading collections or – something that's important to me – making sure that our spaces, services and resources are accessible and equitable for the entire community we serve.

So, I suppose the things that influenced me the most about working at the University of St Andrews and the things that draw me and keep me here is the sense of it being small and mighty. 

So, we may be based in this small medieval town but I think we pack a punch and it's that feeling of we're all interconnected and because we're kind of small, we're really agile. So if we need to make change quickly, we can do so and I think because we're small and we know each other those kinds of... the importance of building relationships, maintaining them and responding
to change quickly is what keeps me here.

I came to St Andrews 16 years ago for a fixed-term post, I think I've been really fortunate while I've been here to have supportive line managers who've guided me and helped me develop my career and support me through that career progression.

So, St Andrews has fantastic staff training and development opportunities and I've always been in a position to make good use of that. 

So, whether that be internal courses, whether that be doing things like the Aurora training, which has been brilliant, but also having the time and space to support my broader career progression.

My line managers helped me through charterships, so I'm now a chartered librarian and not all organisations are in a position to support that,
but here at St Andrews that was possible.

And as I've progressed through my career here over the last 16 years, it's been really, really important to me to think about my staff and my team members and about paying it forward.

So, it's really important as an assistant director and as a manager to support my team, to develop in their careers, whether that be here at St Andrews or elsewhere.

My favourite things in St Andrews, I think how can you beat Chariots of Fire Beach? I mean, come on! Like, you only have to hear the Vangelis music and you're like – I get to live here.

I also think the fact that it's a medieval town and you're surrounded by history is really hard to beat.

My personal favourite while I've been living in St Andrews is the Lade Braes. Lade Braes is a really beautiful little space alongside the botanic gardens and I tend to be spotted first thing on a Saturday morning: I like to go for a jog, but obviously just if you are into jogging maybe be mindful you'll probably see colleagues walking their dogs if you're in your gym gear. But yeah, Lade Braes definitely one of the best places to go.

I'd recommend coming and working for the University of St Andrews based solely on our motto which is 'Ever to excel'. That principle, how could you
not want to work for that? You get to work for the oldest university and help push and strive things forward and I don't think there's a better slogan.

Fantastic place to work, amazing colleagues and you get to do it all within this amazing place in Scotland.

My name is Anindya Rachaudry.  

I am a senior lecturer in the School of English.  

I joined the university in 2012 as a postdoc and then became a lecturer and now a senior lecturer.  

I was looking for a role in academia generally, but at the time the School of English was expanding in postcolonial literature specifically, which is one of my interests.  

And since joining I've had the freedom not only to develop my own research but to help shape the research and teaching trajectories of the school.  

As an academic there are three main components to my job, teaching, research and administration.  

Like all of my colleagues I teach from first year undergraduate all the way through to PhD supervision and my research involves a range of different things.  

I'm interested in postcolonial theory, in Marxist theory, in medical humanities.  

In terms of administration I've had a number of roles.  

I've been admissions officer for the school, I've been director of postgraduate research and I tend to find I'm happiest when the three roles work well together.  

So my teaching influences my research and vice versa, hopefully making all of it a little bit better.  

I love working in the School of English principally because of the people.  

I love my colleagues, I love my students.  

It's a wonderful sensation of having really interesting, clever people doing interesting, clever things that they care about.  

It has happened so often where I'm teaching a book I know really well and a student will say something that will make me look at the book in a completely different way.  

That sort of cross fertilisation of ideas, there's really nothing else like it.  

St Andrews is a very small place and you get to know each other very quickly.  

I always say that if you're going from one building to another you have to factor in an extra five minutes because you'll bump into someone you'll want to stop and talk about.  

So we're a fairly close community.  

One of the things that personally have been most influential for me in terms of my relationship with my colleagues is my role in our local branch of the trade union, University and College Union.  

I've had a number of roles in the branch and it's such a great way to get to know people within my school and beyond in the wider university.  

One of the advantages of working in a university like St Andrews is there are a lot of opportunities for personal professional development.  

One area for me has been what we describe as knowledge exchange and public engagement and I really enjoy the challenge of taking really complex, difficult ideas and translating them to a non-specialist, non-academic audience without losing any of the nuance.  

I was lucky enough to be named one of the New Generation Thinkers, that's a scheme run by the BBC and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.  

I've been lucky enough to get some funding from the university to take my research and translate it to a wider non-academic audience and that is a challenge I particularly enjoy and it's an area in which I've been able to develop.  

St Andrews is a beautiful place.  

Back in the midst of time when I was applying for an undergraduate degree I remember reading in a paper prospectus that the English department was in a castle by the sea and I remember not looking anymore because I was convinced that they were lying.  

Turns out, however many decades later, here I am and they weren't lying.  

We work in a building that is pretty much in a castle by the sea.  

The view looking out from my building is unbeatable.  

St Andrews is a great place to work.  

You'll be working with lots of really interesting colleagues, lots of really interesting students, clever people doing wonderful things, sometimes doing wonderfully silly things.  

I love the sense of energy you get from university campus.  

It's where I feel most at home and I think you'd really enjoy it.  

So we moved to St Andrews from London and the relocation process was fairly simple.  

We ended up living in Edinburgh and I commute in.  

This is true for an increasing number of colleagues in our department and wider.  

There's a WhatsApp driving group where we share plans and we car share and carpool a lot and actually those in-car conversations have been really enjoyable and really productive in terms of generating ideas for research.

My name is Blesson Varghese and I'm a Reader in Computer Science and I work with the School of Computer Science in the University.

I joined the University of St Andrews in February 2022 and moved to the St Andrews area in July of that year.

I was attracted to the University of St Andrews because I've had prior experience working here as a post-doctoral researcher.

I had built a number of relationships across the University and I had very much enjoyed the culture of the department in which I had worked.

So the role at St Andrews also helps me advance my professional career and to meet my academic goals.

I also have a personal connection to the area because my twin daughters were born here.

So in my role I am engaged in research, teaching and leadership activities across numerous activities in the University.

I am passionate about all these things, specifically in my research I look to address how the future internet can be made more sustainable and one of the specific aspects we look at is how data can be processed closer to the users where it is generated.

St. Andrews works under the umbrella of what's called Edge AI and we are one of the teams in the world that is pioneering this area.

We've been successful with a multi-million-pound grant that we are a part of.

It's UK's flagship Edge AI Hub and I get the opportunity to work with a number of universities across the UK and over 50 companies, worldwide companies.

I also lead the online data science programme that is newly being offered by the University to a very diverse cohort of students and in this role I get to engage with not only the students who come into the programme but also because I am engaged with the development part of the programme I get to meet a number of different units across the University.

I enjoy working in computer science because I am surrounded by a number of colleagues who are supportive and friendly, easy to meet and work with.

I also have plenty of support from professional services staff in my day-to-day job.

In short, I believe that the School of Computer Science is an ideal platform for me to develop my career and to realise my academic goals.

One of the aspects that I enjoy most working here at the University is the leadership role that I have in delivering our online flexible postgraduate programme.

This has given me the opportunity to work across a number of different units across the University.

Overall, this has been an enriching experience and I enjoy all aspects of working here whether it be my teaching, research or leadership related activities.

Since coming to St Andrews my career has certainly developed because I have had a number of opportunities to engage in broader research initiatives and leadership activities.

Of particular note, my research team has expanded, I have had more doctoral students join my team.

We have been able to produce excellent publications and file for patents.

I have also had the opportunity to lead cross-institutional bids which has improved a lot of my management skills.

We love living in this area because it is quiet and peaceful, you are surrounded by the countryside, you have access to the sea, the river and the lakes.

The people are friendly and welcoming and we have just enjoyed living here.

I relocated to St Andrews from Northern Ireland with my family.

The University offered a very generous relocation package that supported us in this move to St Andrews.

I'm Erin Niven.

I work in IT services at the University of St Andrews.

We're based out in Walter Bower House in Guardbridge and I started off as an IT/AV Technician Apprentice and I'm now a Senior IT/AV Technician and I'm officially in my tenth year here.

So, when I was looking to start my career, I always wanted to work within IT.

It had been a real big interest of mine at school and really grabbed my attention.

I didn't like the traditional university route. Exams really made me anxious and stressed, so I looked into the apprenticeship scheme and here I am today.

My role covers anything from individual staff setups to maintaining teaching room space and meeting space equipment.

I'm a part of a go-to team of people for when something goes wrong across the university with IT or AV equipment.

What I love most about my role is variety.

I could be solving problems on the spot or collaborating with other teams in IT on ways to improve our service.

At the end of the day it's all about making sure the technology works for the people and not against them.

I love working in my department because of the variety and the continuous opportunities to learn and grow.

I value the supportive and collaborative environment where teamwork is central to everything that we do.

The IT operation is so vast, so no two days are ever the same.

Every day there's something new to tackle whether it's troubleshooting an issue or supporting a new initiative in the department.

Everyone relies on IT in some way to do their job or learn here.

I am fortunate to work as a part of a team who support each other and collaborate daily to resolve issues.

It's incredibly rewarding to know that the work I do makes a difference for people working at the university.

I enjoy working at the University because of the sense of community and collaboration, working in an environment where I feel encouraged to professionally grow and achieve more every day.

The variety tasks makes my work very exciting and the positive workplace culture really motivates me to do my best every day.

Since joining the University in 2015 as a very shy modern apprentice, my personal and professional skills have developed hugely.

Since working from my apprenticeship role to where I am today as a senior IT/AV technician, I've come on leaps and bounds and that couldn't have been helped along without the support from my team and colleagues in the department.

One of the most significant developments in my journey is now starting a university degree.

I never thought I would do this as that was never on the cards when I first started here in 2015.

However, the support from my team and my department has been invaluable to where I've got to today.

As part of my university degree, I'm working on a project focused on sustainability and I'm really enjoying developing my skills in this area.

Being able to apply my knowledge and also help contribute to the strategic pillars of the University has been really great for me.

I grew up here, living very locally and what I love most about working in St Andrews is the sense of community and the little bit of history that the town has.

I really enjoy seeing the students starting at the start of semester getting ready to do their studies. It's really interesting and exciting. It brings a real buzz to the town.

I would recommend working at a university because it offers a supportive and dynamic environment where I'm always learning.

The University is full of passionate and like-minded people who are committed to their work.

The town itself is beautiful and very welcoming making it a great place to live and work.

With fantastic opportunities to grow and develop here, the University is brilliant so I would recommend it to anyone who wants to pursue their growth and career just like I did.

I'm Claire Whitehead and I'm a reader in the Department of Russian in the School of Modern Languages here at St Andrews.

I work in the Russian Department and I'm on what we call an education and research focus contract so that means I really have I guess three parts to my job so I do research, I teach and I do administration, so service.

So one of the bits of my job I really love is I teach and coordinate the first year Russian language beginners module so this is a course for students who've never studied Russian formally might not even actually have any language qualifications from school and we take them from hopefully knowing nothing and teach them within the first week how to recognise the Cyrillic alphabet, how to write the Cyrillic alphabet and now by the end of the year they can speak Russian a little bit, they can read Russian, they can communicate in Russian and our students are amazing really, I mean genuinely.

In all of those 21, 22 years that I've been teaching I never once got bored, every cohort of students is just as bright, just as interesting but in different ways.

The way our Scottish degree system works where they take such a wide variety of subjects means that you have just really interesting students sitting in front of you doing a really interesting combination of subjects that they talk to each other really nicely, I genuinely always learn something from them every year.

I think we do without sounding too saccharine, I think we kind of understand at the moment at St Andrews that we're having a good moment and that we're all kind of part of that and yeah so it's, I'm incredibly happy here, I can't actually imagine working anywhere else so I've been very very fortunate I think.

I think probably the way my career has most obviously developed is the opportunities I've been lucky enough to have to contribute outside of teaching and research to the life of the university so I, over the last 20 years have been at different times, I was a senate assessor for the arts faculty on the university courts of the university governing body and since 2004 I've lived in a village called Pittenweem which is about 11 miles south from St Andrews on the coast looking south over the Firth of Forth, it's the most beautiful place in the world to live and we very smugly, my family and I very smugly often say that we live in the most beautiful place in the world.

So I would genuinely recommend working at St Andrews for a variety of reasons I think, It's a university that is enjoying a very positive reputation at the moment and I think I'd be lying if I said that didn't feel nice, it's a nice feeling to work somewhere where the contribution that you can make is appreciated by the students and then gains wider appreciation, I think we're all sceptical when we want to be about league tables but I think most people would say they'd rather be towards the top than towards the bottom of those.

My wife is also an academic here, my wife and I have two children who are both currently 12, one in primary 7 and one in S1 who both go to school locally but we've been incredibly pleased with the state schooling available in Pittenweem and Anstruther, you know very pleased with the sort of experience that they've had being embedded in their local communities going to school there is very important to us and I think it's really important for me to say that as a gay woman in a same-sex relationship with two children living in what many people would see as rural Scotland has been nothing other than a positive experience, we've been entirely accepted as a family in Pittenweem, I don't think my sexuality is ever an issue in Pittenweem or at work and so for us that's incredibly important and it's part of the reason why we find it difficult to imagine living elsewhere because we do recognise that we don't look like every other family that lives and works in the local area but it's been an entirely positive and supportive experience for us so yeah it's a great place to raise kids and a great place to have a life.

I'm Cameron Little, I'm an HR Business Partner within Human Resources and I've been working at the University since March 2006.

I've been in the local area since forever really.

I was originally born in New Zealand and moved here and did all my schooling in St Andrews and did a degree at Abertay in Dundee and a post-grad and I struggled to get employment to start with and I wrote a letter to the University asking for some work experience.

So I started helping out in the Recruitment Office and with HR Business Partners at the time dealing with admin work and then I got a maternity cover in the HR admin team and then was offered a trainee HR officer post at the time and then I've continued my career becoming an HR Business Partner.

So as an HR Business Partner my role is to support schools and units in terms of HR activities so that may be meeting with managers to discuss their strategy, discuss their complement, their workforce plan applications, right down to dealing with any queries an employee in that school unit has.

Could be about their absence, any concerns they've got about contractual terms, things like that.

I also deal with staff immigration for the University so that involves helping people from overseas relocate to St Andrews, sorting out their visa applications for them, dealing with any queries and dealing with any visa extensions within the UK and helping schools and units bring people over to visit to do adhoc research, teaching activities, things like that.

What I enjoy working about in Human Resources is that you get to touch across all aspects of the University.

Dealing with people from different backgrounds.

I've got a really good team within HR.

I enjoy working with my colleagues, we're very supportive of each other and I would say the variety of working here is an attraction.

There's a lot of things you deal with that one day I could be dealing with somebody who's got an issue with their health and they're trying to get back to work.

The next day I could be dealing with a professor who's trying to negotiate the UK immigration system which can be complex for somebody, so it's really the variety of being able to help those people through the concerns they have.

Personally I've been able to deal with a lot of people since I've been working here for the last 19 years and really being able to adapt my style depending on the audience.

For example, I could be doing a presentation to management about HR policies so I adapt my style to that.

I could then also be dealing with somebody on a completely different aspect where it has to be more sympathetic to their situation, understand their perspective, trying to resolve their queries but also being aware of the management aspects and being able to adapt my style and I think over the number of years I've been here being able to change that as I need to depending on the situation I find myself in.

I think St Andrews is a great place, there's plenty to do.

Being from this area I've always spent most of my time outside.

Whether it be now with my kids, take them to play rugby, watch rugby, they play cricket, we enjoy going to the golf course, they really enjoy going to the Himalayas in St Andrews during the summer.

So I would say St Andrews is a good place, it's got a lot of facilities.

I would recommend working at Universities St Andrews because it's an institution that values the work-life balance of its employees, there's a lot of flexibility in terms of being able to manage your outside work activities, you get to meet a range of diverse people from various backgrounds and as I've shown it can be a career for a long period of time or it can be a step towards something else.

I am Cat Hobaiter.

I am in the School of Psychology and Neuroscience here at the University of St Andrews and I'm a professor in Origins of Mind, which means that I get to study how our minds evolved and how the minds of other species evolved.

So I've been at St Andrews since my PhD.

I did my PhD here, I came in 2007 and then I've stayed ever since.

I did my postdoc, I got my first lectureship here and I've never left.

It's a bit of an oddity to have a primatologist who's not working on humans in a psychology and neuroscience school.

Everybody else, all of my colleagues in psychology, they're usually working on people.

People are apes too, we're primates, so that is a good home for me.

But one of the things that I love about working there is that we're a really interdisciplinary school and we're a really tight-knit university.

So I spend as much time in other schools as I do my own.

I have colleagues that come up to psychology and neuroscience and we're just very open doors in that way.

And that means that as well as spending time with colleagues who work on the same kind of things I do, I get to spend time with people who do completely different things.

Aspects of, you know, navigating in space or thinking about the social processes of big groups.

And actually over the years I've been able to, that's forced me to rethink how I think about chimpanzees and gorillas in really interesting ways at times.

One of the things that I love about St Andrews is they let me do what I do in a way that almost no other university I can think of would, which is that they let a fully tenured professor spend six months of the year still working hands-on in the field with chimpanzees and gorillas.

And they recognise how important it is to actually be present and to take our students and our colleagues and everybody else down there and have those experiences.

So I came here to do my PhD and that was on chimpanzee gesture.

And we were the first study to try and look at non-vocal communication, so gestural communication, with great apes in the wild.

But recently we've added a few new friends, so we've just started doing projects with elephants and we're looking at other species because actually if I really want to know what makes chimpanzees and humans and other apes unique, I need a comparison group that's also highly social and intelligent and long-lived and doing incredible communication to compare us to, to work out what might be a part of our biology, what might be a part of our social upbringing, our culture.

And so the elephants have been a fantastic new interesting line of research for us and so being able to go sort of full spectrum from being a PhD student to now running my own really big busy lab, having my own PhD students.

I actually had my first PhD student come to visit our field site a few months ago and that definitely was a very full circle feeling for me, so it's a nice point.

I live just outside St Andrews, so I live in a small stone cottage in a field just outside of town.

St Andrews is, is our little bubble, it's a beautiful old town surrounded by incredible countryside and lots of gorgeous fishing villages and I spend so much time working in remote places that St Andrews itself can feel quite busy to me.

But one of my favourite things about living here is having that combination of an incredible research university and a really active cultural life but in sort of small town rural living.

So I'd really recommend working for St Andrews if what you're looking for is a collegiate interdisciplinary environment where you are going to be spending a lot of time hands-on with colleagues, where students just knock on your door, where you bump into interesting people in the pub, in the streets and have kind of conversations about philosophy or whale song at unexpected times.

So we're such a rich vibrant little community.

I am Dr Shruti Narayanswamy.

I am the Head of Entrepreneurial Education in IELLI, I-E-L-L-I, it sounds like the beginning of a song or something, but it's the International Education and Lifelong Learning Institute.

I came to St Andrews in 2015 to pursue my PhD as a student and then I transitioned to becoming a staff member in 2020.

I came to St Andrews because I was looking for opportunities to pursue my research which was on women's cinema-going in India in the 1920s to 1940s and St Andrews offered a really wonderful opportunity for research supervision with Professor Tom Rice, who is now a colleague who I teach with, so that's fantastic.

And I also was fortunate to receive funding to pursue my PhD and, of course, when I sort of did my research it just looked like a really lovely community to join. I joined a cohort of other international PhD students so I just found a really welcoming community here.

I am currently the Head of Entrepreneurial Education. So, as part of that role, I oversee a lot of current programmes which are designed to, to put it very simply, my job is to help support our staff and students be more creative, take more risks within not just their teaching and their learning, within their modules but also their overall student experience with us.

So, I oversee a lot of co-curricular programmes, research internships, skills development initiatives but also I'm the Deputy Director of our vertically integrated projects programme which is our pride and joy, if I would say so myself.

So, these are a really exciting group of modules which are actually research led credit bearing modules where students and staff work together on active research projects and it's only one of three programmes of its kind in the UK as well.

Being able to work somewhere that is quite small and intimate and then you really get a sense of community here. But also, we have 9,000 students from so many different parts of the world, so it feels a bit like I'm getting the best of both, getting to feel, you know getting to be somewhere that where I feel like I get to meet so many different people with so many different experiences but also if I just want to escape the beach is you know, four minutes away and I can walk there. 

I'm also a runner so you know being able to be somewhere where I can go for just a lovely run and just sort of unwind a bit that's really special.

Everyone I meet here has a really passionate sense of wanting to support our students and wanting to build up that fantastic student experience and everyone contributes to it in different ways, but that sense of how, you know, we're doing well but how do we keep doing even better every single day in big and small ways – that sense is very tangible.

So, I'm the kind of person that I... you know, my job will never just be my job for me. I need to wake up feeling like what I do matters, that what I do is making a genuine and positive impact on people's lives, even if it's just in small ways.

I'm the kind of person for whom it's important that my job is making a difference and I really enjoy working with people who share that feeling and I think that's what comes through very strongly to me.

My name is Emma Buckley.

I'm a Senior Lecturer in Latin and Classical Studies in the School of Classics and I'm also the Deputy Head of School of Classics.

There are a few things that did attract me to St Andrews.

I knew some of the people that were researching here already and I really liked their work and I knew that they were active so that I knew that the university was supporting people in their research.

My job has three strands really, research, teaching and administration.

So research, I'm part of the Classics School, I'm there to produce good research, to contribute to the REF environment, to try and attract funding, to supervise post-graduates.

In teaching, I teach across all levels in the school so that involves everything from big sub-honours lectures to smaller tutorials and seminars.

I really like the honours teaching that we do in the school because it's completely research led.

A small group of about 15 and you just dig into what you're researching on with them, that's really rewarding.

And I also teach in the MLitt and supervise some PGRs [postgraduate research students] too.

For me, the best thing about working in Classics is the people I work with and the students that I work with too.

We've got a great team, the professional staff are wonderful, they just keep everything ticking over and they're really good with the students.

My colleagues are very collegial, we work collaboratively, work is shared equally and as far as possible equitably and the students are really nice too and we have small groups, you get to know the students, they're fun to work with, they are bright and inquisitive and so there are personal relationships that you can have that you probably don't get at a bigger institution.

So as I said before, I started as a young early career researcher here so any skills I've got, I basically did develop at St Andrews.

In terms of research, I think just being here and being given responsibilities, being given freedom and independence to design courses, to attract students, to collaborate with other schools, that's been really fun.

And then a skill that I actually didn't think I would need in a career in academia is more to do with management and leadership and I've been given the chance to do some jobs that involve being the head of a team, I've been able to take part in a mentoring scheme which is specifically designed for women to try and get them into the professoriate and to try and get them into positions of leadership and that's, I think I've definitely got a completely new perspective on the skills I've got through doing that course at St Andrews.

My favourite thing about St Andrews is the beach, I've got a two-year-old and a dog and we love spending time on the beach and playing on the coastal path.

I'd recommend working here because I do think the university looks after its researchers, it does remember that research and teaching are at its core.

I'm a solo mum to a two-year-old and the university has been fantastic about flexi working arrangements, it's also got special funding so that I can continue research activities.

I've taken my baby to conferences in Italy and Greece and that's through helpful funding from the university.

In terms of family life here, core hours are protected and there are some really good nurseries.

Hi, my name is Amritesh Singh, my pronouns are he, him.

I'm an associate lecturer in academic English and TESOL [Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages] at the International Education and Lifelong Learning Institute.

I joined St Andrews in July 2021.

So why I was attracted to St Andrews has a lot to do with why I found myself in this profession, which is because of the tutors that I had at uni.

They knew when to be kind and caring, and yet they also knew when to be fiercely intelligent, when to push me and when to nurture me.

And I wanted to be in an environment where I could model myself and them.

St Andrews, with its reputation for teaching excellence and steadfast commitment to holistic student experience, suggested itself to me as my natural habitat.

I was utterly thrilled when I got that role.

And to be honest, I still am.

So in my current role, I serve as the programme director for all taught postgraduate programmes in international education.

And there are various elements to my role.

And each element kind of coincides with different points in the student life cycle from admissions right up to graduation.

And by far, this is one of the most exciting periods in the academic calendar because, I mean, at the moment, I believe we have students from 50, over 50 countries studying on our programmes.

No words can do justice to the energy and the richness and thought that this diversity brings to our learning environment.

Because you see, when you have students with vastly disparate lived experiences from sundry contexts, then lecture and seminar questions cease to be dry academic inquiries, or dull essay or dissertation titles.

They become the means through which all of us staff and students grow, both personally and professionally.

What I enjoy the most about working in St Andrews, that's a really hard one.

And that's because there's so many things that one finds to take delight in in St Andrews.

I think the first thing to remember is that St Andrews is a university town.

So there's an electric rhythm to life over here, particularly during term time.

So you have that, you know, the energy and the bustle of a university town on the one hand.

And you have these beautiful, serene and tranquil beaches.

I don't know of any other place that has a sort of fluid harmony between energy and tranquillity that St Andrews has.

Why would I recommend working at the university?

Well, if you are passionate about learning and teaching, if you care about forging, genuine, authentic relationships with your colleagues and your students alike.

And if you're looking for a university that has found the sweet spot between maintaining centuries-old tradition and leading innovation, then St Andrews is the place for you.

It most certainly is for me.

So, my name is Karen Laing.

I am about to move into the Director of Sustainability Transformation role from 1 March 2025.

I work in the Business Transformation Unit and I joined the University in January 2007 as an Accounts Assistant.

So, what attracted me to the role at the University initially was the location of the University. I also was aware of the positive reputation the University had and I also had friends working at the University who spoke very positively about the University as an employer.

In my new role that I'm moving into as Director of Sustainability Transformation, I will be responsible for operationalising the University's sustainability strategy, overseeing the change programme that's associated with that and embedding sustainability right across the University.

It's a really interesting place to work, great team of people all very professional, hardworking, dedicated to making the University a better place. It's a real
mix of backgrounds and personalities which brings a great dynamic to the team.

The type of work we do in Business Transformation, we get to engage with different stakeholders at all levels, right across the institution and really learn about how the University operates.

The University is a really collaborative place to work, it's got some really great people who are very passionate about what they do, it's great to be able to support that work and feel like you're part of that bigger picture and also lots of opportunities that come along with working at the University.

I started as an accounts assistant in the Finance team and then moved on to managing
the Accounts Payable team. I then transitioned over into the change space and helped build the Business Transformation unit, progressing then into managing the Business Transformation portfolio and then from March moving into my new role as Director of Sustainability Transformation.

Working in Finance, I was given the opportunity to engage with quite a lot of change projects across the University which opened that door for me to move over into that space and I've also had a lot of training and development to progress through those roles all supported by the University whether that's been internal or external development.

So, there's a real mix of different people in St Andrews: staff, tourists, students, locals, all located in quite a small town which creates a really unique atmosphere. 

And as someone who loves the outdoors, there's so many amazing places and spaces. I love going walking in St Andrews and it's great to get that opportunity either
outwith or within working hours, to take advantage of that.

I would recommend working for the University as they are a really great employer and get lots of opportunities to progress your career if you want to take advantage of them.

So, my name is Kevin Lala. I'm a professor in the School of Biology.

I came here in 2002 from Cambridge. I was initially a reader but was promoted very quickly to professor.

I was attracted to the University by its strong reputation in my area of science. There were actually several members of staff in the University who worked on related issues, and I liked the idea of being surrounded by other people with similar academic interests with whom I could interact regularly, and who had very good reputations.

As a professor in the School of Biology, I undertake research and teaching in behavioural and evolutionary biology. But I'm also the EDI faculty lead for Science and Medicine, and that means I devote a considerable portion of my time to try and improve the lived experience of staff and students within the University. That's something I find very rewarding.

I'm very conscious of the fact that it's not always easy for people from less privileged backgrounds or with particular personal characteristics to feel comfortable or flourish in large institutions like universities. I like the fact that this University seems to recognise that and is actively trying to address it.

I like the fact that it's put EDI as one of the central pillars of what it stands for.

Over the years, I've got a lot of pleasure out of my research. I really appreciate the fact that the University has given me the time, the resources, the facilities to do my research.

But I also really enjoy my teaching, and I appreciate the fact that I've been free to teach the topics which are important to me.

So, for example, I now teach senior honours — that's a fourth-year module — called The Science of Race and Racism, which explains to the students why scientific racism is wrong. I think it's fantastic that I have the freedom to do that, and I can get together with academic colleagues who are like-minded and we can put on a module on a topic which is really important and which the students really appreciate.

Since joining the University, my career has gone very smoothly. I joined in 2002. Within three years, I was promoted to Professor. A few years after that, I was elected to a National Academy.

I'd like to think that anybody at the University who is good at research will be rewarded and will get the promotions and the recognition that they merit.

My favourite thing about living in St Andrews is I love the fact that I can walk to work, or I can cycle to work. Or even if I drive, it only takes five or ten minutes. I never get stuck in traffic. I never have a problem parking.

I'd recommend the University of St Andrews because it has an excellent, strong reputation. But it's also a place where you can feel comfortable, where people are friendly, and you can feel supported.

So, I relocated to St Andrews from the University of Cambridge. It was no problem really. It was a challenging time in my life — this was my first academic job, but I'd also just got married and was just starting a family.

But the transitions all went pretty smoothly.

Actually, shortly after my son,  my first child, was born, my wife, who's also an academic, also got a job at the University of St Andrews in another department. And, well, she's now a professor here too.

One of my favourite things about the University of St Andrews is it really is a great place to raise a family. It's safe. It's secure. You feel comfortable here.

It's an educated place, a cultured place, where the people are really friendly.

My name is Samantha Dixon.

I am the School Manager for the School of Classics and School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, so split across the two schools.

I started at the University in 2006.

I'd worked a lot in the hotel trade, so I wanted to get more into an administration role and this job came up at the University.

I live in St Andrews, so I thought, why not go for it and obviously was successful.

I'm the School Manager for the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and School of Classics.

I was on a secondment prior to this as School Manager to Geography and Sustainable Development and Classics.

The role looks after the financial side of the school, the operations, the budget, it supports the head of school.

Obviously heads of school change every three to four years, so it's good having that School Manager role that can then continue with the budget, knowing what's been happening in the school, how to move it forward, as well as the strategic planning side of the school.

So working across the two departments, obviously both are different, one's an art school, one's a science school.

The School of Classics have been in since 2017, so I understand how the teaching works, how the budgets work.

Working in Earth and Environmental Sciences has been, I only started in September, so I'm still trying to get my head around the lab accounts, lab work, field work, the teaching side of things.

I think for me, having, going through the administration progression route, it's the flexibility, I know you have to apply for the jobs, but it's the flexibility of being able to apply for the jobs within different units and schools.

I've worked in the Principal's Office, I've worked in the School of English, I've worked in Registry, and working in those areas has developed me more to understand the University as a whole, but also I tend to be the go-to person that people come to when they have questions because I do have that knowledge and experience.

I think it's good, and the mix of people you meet along the way, I've built up such great relationships with people outside and within the University.

My career has progressed from, as I said, I was a receptionist in the Principal's Office, I then went to an administrator in the School of English.

While I was in the Principal's Office, I actually got the opportunity to work as part of REF, so I worked in the Research Office dealing with academics, dealing with the paperwork that needed for REF.

After English, I then moved on to the Academic Data Team, so looking after all the student records from incoming to outgoing, doing all the reporting for external companies.

I also worked across teams, I worked with the undergraduate team, worked with the postgraduate teams, just making sure that student records were up to date, all the data was correct.

Then getting us to comment with collaborations and study abroad, which then led to a further job, a permanent position in collaborations and study abroad, so dealing with inbound and outbound students, but also getting the chance to develop an online system for applications for outbound students rather than the paper form, so that got developed
and I was on that board.

Then, as I said, going to Classics and then developing myself
through Classics.

I've done the Passport to Management, Passport to Administration through the University.

I did the Evening Degree while I was working at St Andrews, got that opportunity, so I got my Bachelor of Science in 2018 and then being part of the Aurora Programme last year.

So what I love about the location of the University is it's a great wee town.

I've been here since 2000 in St Andrews.

I live in St Andrews, all my friends are in St Andrews, you can walk down the street and say "hi" to different people that you've obviously met through the University or outside the University.

And yeah, you've got three beaches, perfect for walking away at lunchtime just to clear your head.

Yeah, it's a good location.

I'd recommend working at St Andrews.

It is a great place to work, you meet a lot of amazing people that can help you with networking, develop your skills and get the opportunity to work in various different departments.

I think that's been a really good bonus for me, is understanding how the University works by working in the various different departments and dealing with different people.

My name is Katrina, and I work for Estates at College Gate.

The main attraction for me for the job at the University was having the flexible hours. It made it easier for me to break up my work and my home life, looking after my mum.

I am a cleaner at College Gate. We keep the building nice and fresh for all the academic staff that come in. There are lots of people that come through for meetings and interviews, so we just keep things running smoothly while we're there.

It's really good to work for Estates. We've got a really great team. We get to meet lots and lots of people—not just the cleaners, but also the janitors, academic staff, and students.

I think the University itself is so diverse. You get to meet so many really great people. It's nice to meet people from different places, with different views on life itself, on work, on family, and from different countries.

It's great to meet people who don't actually come from the UK, and to hear their views on what they think the UK is like, and how you would think of their country. It's quite nice to have that sort of diversity, not just from where you work, but from the whole of the University.

You get a great diverse section of people.

Other than the cleaning, there are different clubs that we get invited to join. There are also different meetings that we can go to. You can also study as well, so that's quite good.

St Andrews is absolutely beautiful. There are so many things to see. Bus routes are great as well – to take you over to Dundee or up to Anstruther. You can go and see all the different sites.

There's lots to do, especially if you're a student in St Andrews, and there are lots of sights that you can go and see round about.

I'm Nick. I work as a Business Intelligence Developer at the Planning Unit for the University.

I provide a service to all the different units by analysing data.

I was already working for the University before this role as a chef. So I knew it was quite a nice place to work. There are no unreasonable expectations or anything.

When this job came up, I was already looking at doing an online degree in data science. This job lets me do data science while doing a real job as well. It's a really good environment to work in.

There’s lots of different data I work with. It's mainly data and applications. For example, working out how many new students we're going to have next year, and getting that data into a format other people can use.

Some days I'm doing that. Other days I'm working on looking at the University's carbon footprint and what's going on with that. I create lots of visualisations that are used by people all over the University – from thermal office workers up to the Principal's Office.

I really like the variety of things to do. There's a lot of different types of data to work with. We've got different tools to use, so I’ve got that too.

It's a small team, but we all get on really well. There's plenty of support from each other. I learn by seeing what other people are doing and contributing to different projects. I also interact with people outside the department. There’s a lot of different people to meet and things to work on.

It feels like a safe place to work. I know my job is secure.

I've got plenty of chances for professional development at the University. There are internal training courses. I'm doing a graduate apprenticeship, so I spend one day a week studying at another university to improve my skills.

There's lots of encouragement to get better at what I'm doing. As I improve, I’ll be able to progress within the University too.

When I started my current role, I didn’t know an awful lot about data. The team has been really supportive. They've taken me through different aspects of the University's data.

I like seeing things from different people's points of view. People in Registry have gone through student data with me. It’s about getting comfortable with that and the different tools we use.

I've definitely learned a lot – working with other people, handling different data, and understanding how different people think and use it.

The things I like about St Andrews: it's a nice, quiet, peaceful place. It feels very safe. There’s a lot to do with my children on the weekends.

I’d recommend working for the University. It’s a nice environment that feels very supportive. There aren’t any unreasonable pressures. The work is interesting. I’m given plenty of time to do it, and the support is there if I’m unsure about anything.

I've got children and they're getting on really well here. There are plenty of things for them to do – like the St Columba's School in Cupar, which is great. It's a small school and the teachers there are brilliant.

They’re both in swimming lessons too. They’re getting on really well and always have good things to say about it.

My name is Audrey Horsburgh, I'm the School Manager in Geography and Sustainable Development.

I joined the institution in 2018 and I've had various roles in units and schools.

So initially I was attracted to a role at the University of St Andrews because it's close to me geographically where I stay.

Also I have family and friends that work at the institution they'd said really positive things about the university as an employer and it was a calculated risk for me to leave my previous job to move into a job within higher education.

As School Manager I look after the business operational needs of the school, so quite a lot of the behind the scenes stuff.

I look after personnel, finance, budgets, strategic aims and goals for the school, the state, mostly anything that's resource related so I support in many realms in teaching and research and just operationally for the school.

So really varied, I work with a lot of people, yeah it's a great job.

I've had a kind of pot of career I guess, pot of history of the university so far to date.

When I joined the institution in 2018 I started off as a PA (personal assistant) in Student Services which is one of the central units and I worked on some systems related projects as well and the opportunities present themselves.

If you're an internal candidate you can really choose what you're interested in and what your skill set suits and I took the plunge and changed into a role in a school which I loved.

I loved support and teaching, I loved dealing with students on a front line basis and having that interaction and then really within there there's opportunities if you present yourself and you're proactive about your own training and development there are real opportunities to progress and that is how I've changed roles and I've ended up in a school manager role and I've had really supportive managers and OSDS which is our central service offer a lot of training and support for people, mentoring.

I mean St Andrews really has it all in terms of location, even to be able to walk down the beach on your lunch break I think is a really incredible thing.

I think since Covid everyone has had a bit of a thirst for being outside and having breaks away from our desk and I like coming in, I like coming into the office because I get that here as well.

I also sometimes bring my running kit in and go for a run along with Sans on my lunch break when I'm feeling virtuous so yeah I mean it's just amazing to be able to do that here and you know you're walking around historic buildings, the kind of culture and yeah being part of that is incredible.

So I would recommend working at the University of St Andrews and I have recommended to people that they apply for jobs at University of St Andrews because it has a great reputation as an employer.

I've had opportunities through my first role in St Andrews through to where I am now and I really champion that for other people that if they're proactive with that they can find you know opportunities to do things they're interested in, go to conferences, network and really to meet people.

I've met some of the best friends I've ever had here as well because it's a small campus, it's a small town so yeah I probably suggested a few people put their name down I think especially for people who are local or thinking about flexible arrangements.

The university are very accommodating, people with families so there's opportunities to do hybrid working which I think suits a lot of people now in a kind of modern office environment.

So as an employer the university are incredibly flexible.

In my current role I was only in post for four months before I went on maternity leave and I had a great opportunity to take almost a full year off and then come back to my role as is and there was a really flexible and accommodating discussion about coming back to work and what that looks like for me as a new parent and that's really something that the university enables so if people want that work-life balance it doesn't have to be one or the other and there's always conversations to be had with your line manager around these things which has been great and it's always felt supportive.

So, I'm Dr Rebecca Smith, an education-focused lecturer in physical chemistry.

I joined the University as staff in 2021, but before that I was an undergraduate student here doing chemistry with maths, and then a PhD in chemistry, all in the Purdie Building in the School of
Chemistry.

So, it's made up of two major components, the first of which is teaching activities, so that's things like teaching the undergrads, convening the modules that they run, supervising honours research projects, and then more service and leadership roles, which for me, because of my interest, goes in equality, diversity and inclusion, so that's on the School Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee as the staff disability champion.

Out with the school, I'm a co-chair of the staff with disability or neurodiversity network, which has developed my network beyond the School of Chemistry, looking at more policy work and action to help the University maintain and improve their diverse pillar.

No two weeks are the same.

One week you'll be ending up speaking with students individually to assist them with their learning and overcoming concepts that you think you knew from when you were an undergrad or PhD, and they will have come up with a new way of explaining it to you, which will challenge your understanding to develop your knowledge and your ability to explain it to assist them with their learning, so they can understand the concepts as well as you think you understand them, or literature understands them.

Beyond what I do in the School of Chemistry, the wider university has many advantages, so the main one for me is the staff with a disability or neurodiversity network, and co-chairing that, that has allowed me to develop both a network amongst colleagues who are also academics, but beyond.

So, for instance, it's a mixture of those in professional services and those with more academic-based roles.

And this means that you have that network of those of us with a difference that can overcome whatever disabling factors the university
or society has for us and improve it, whether that be on an individual level, looking at regional adaptions, or whether that be as more of a cohort to try and do policy or more general action work, for instance, looking at teaching rooms, how they are accessible for both staff and students. So, since I started at the university, it was a bit different.

I remember coming here as an undergrad and developing in what do I now teach as a chemist, and working and actually deciding that actually I enjoyed chemistry enough to stay in that area.

During my third year undergrad, I decided I wanted to go into research, so I then stayed on as a PhD student here.

And at that point, because I dipped my toe in teaching the labs mainly, teaching the lower years of undergrads, and marking those works gave me a bit of an insight into what an academic does as an education-focused academic so that they know what they're teaching,
know what they're doing marking-wise. It became clear that I wanted to do that track, therefore I was given the opportunity, or asked for the opportunity and was awarded it, of doing a couple of taught components of how we teach at university, which then prepared me really well to go into an education-focused role.

But in the time, now we're looking about four years since I first started at actual as fully staff, I've developed so much.

You look back to my teaching materials that I used even just four years ago, and you think, actually, I've developed them so much to work out how we adapt not only for the individual students, that whole diversity amongst the student cohort, but also how I adapt my style to be as inclusive as possible of those different learning styles.

Beyond the School of Chemistry and the university, I think it's a mixture of you have access to the beaches in St Andrews, you then also have access to the Highlands pretty easily in Scottish terminology to go like whitewater kayaking.

And then beyond that, we have a really good year round, so long-term cohort within the church I belong to.

So therefore there is a lot to go on, even for those members of staff that think, oh, it's a student town.

It's much more than that when you develop the networks with the non-student members of the town.