Derek MacLeod, BSc 2003

Following my time at St Andrews, I was fortunate to be elected as President of the Students' Association before being awarded a Bobby Jones Scholarship to study at Emory University in Atlanta. Following that year I ended up working on the elections in Liberia before working for a UK-based democracy and governance NGO in London for two years.

I am now back living in Scotland and working in the International Office for the University of Edinburgh as well as being a Director of the NGO that I used to work for.

All the positions and roles that I have had since leaving St Andrews have come from the skills that I learnt as a student. The analytical and transferable skills that I developed during my time in the Physics department have been used on real life tasks ranging from the presentations that I give for work every week to the daily communications and interactions that I have with people around the world.

My years in St Andrews were some of the best of my life and I would recommend it to anyone. The Physics department was a friendly and welcoming place to and as long as you can cope with the North Sea wind and the fact that you can't walk down the street without meeting someone you know, then I'm sure that you’ll have a wonderful time.

Updated August 2011