Abbie May a former Hair & Media Makeup student recently got in touch to tell us about her time at our Amersham campus and what she is up to now. During her time at secondary school Abbie came to the realisation that her classes weren’t right for her, as they didn’t challenge her creatively. At first she considered studying Beauty but desired to be more creative which led her onto our Level 2 Diploma in Hair & Media Make Up & Level 3 Diploma in Theatrical, Special Effects and Hair and Media Make Up at Amersham. Once she started the course her determination led Abbie to work at Space NK an MAC Cosmetics alongside her course to gain experience. She also started working as a freelance make up artist to build up a portfolio and contacts ready for her next steps into the industry. By having great experience and qualifications this gave Abbie a strong path into a professional role. Abbie said her honest ambitions were “…to make a lot of money and live a comfortable life. A woman who can hold herself. I want to create a legacy and for my work to be remembered when I am gone, an icon if you like.” An entrepreneur is one way of describing Abbie with her high ambitions and her creativity of always thinking outside the box. Abbie’s enjoyed her courses at College as they involved “ …learning about the make-up looks through the decades, finding differences between them and noticing how make up has evolved over the years. To this day, I still use this knowledge when creating make up looks for my clients and including aspects of the make-up trends back then now. The practical lessons were my favourite, I could get creative and learn about each individual product I applied on the skin. This was the most fun for me! Then take pictures and do it again but even better, after all, practise makes perfect.” Abbie has now launched an agency representing hair stylists, make-up artists, nail technicians and barbers called MAIDA MONEY. It was named this because “Maida Vale was the first place I moved to in London and MONEY because I want to make a lot of it doing what I love the most - make up! “. Abbie has already booked her represented artists on shoots on Sleek Make Up campaigns, Takeshi’s Castle, MTV’s MTV STAX and worked with many celebrities including H.E.R for the BRIT’s, Bebe Rexha for VOIR magazine front cover shoot, presenter Vick Hope and Capital FM’s breakfast show presenter Roman Kemp. MAIDA MONEY is now launching merchandise for the brand and a few products will follow. Keep your eyes peeled on @maidamoneyagency & @abbiemaymua on Instagram!

Matt Tilston former Bucks College Group student recently got in touch to tell us about his experience at the college and how it helped him to get to where he is now. Matt studied our Level 3 Extended Diploma in Music Technology which is based out our Amersham campus, this course is designed to ‘equip you with the technical expertise required in Music Technology as well as training you in softer skills such as team work and project work.’ For Matt, studying at Bucks College Group was the next logical step for him as he had just decided that he wanted a career in the music industry. Matt attended one of our taster days to see what the course entailed “I found the taster day very intriguing and after speaking with the tutors, who were extremely friendly, I knew that this is where I could prepare myself for that next stage.” Matt found tholat the Music Technogy course “exactly tailored to my interests and the free use of industry standard facilities meant I could practice on real hardware. I had access to all the Digital Audio Workstations you’d ever need and it was here that I’d learn to use Ableton Live which I now use every working day.” The course gave him freedom of creativity and he felt valued as he was “able to show my work to industry experienced tutors who genuinely took an interest and gave relevant feedback.” After undertaking the course and learning more about the industry this is when Matt picked up his interest in post-production work and started to build up a healthy portfolio of Foley & Composition work which helped him get into his first choice university. Matt has now taken a massive step up from being with us at the college and is working as a Mix & Mastering engineer for ‘Wired Masters’. Chris Bruce, Matt’s former tutor helped Matt obtain work experience at Wired Masters during his course “I definitely have him to thank!”

Oliver Peacock, a former Applied Science student who has just graduated with a 2:1 in physics recently got in touch to tell us about his journey to studying at a PhD level. When thinking about which education was right for him, Oliver felt that A Levels didn’t give him enough practical experience in a scientific laboratory and saw that the course at our Aylesbury campus provided this and the modules offered him a wider variety of scientific subjects to study. This larger amount of practical experience has now come in handy to Oliver at university when visiting other laboratories for research purposes. Whilst studying at our Aylesbury campus Oliver took all opportunities given to him to further his experience which include work experience at RAF Halton which came to be very useful in his future. Oliver said “The course I took at Aylesbury College helped to lay the foundations for scientific writing and laboratory practice which gave me a noticeable edge over some of my other course mates at university.” He felt his essays that were completed at college helped with referencing and scientific reports which was a large part of his degree. Carrying our practical work on his course also taught him good lab practice which has been invaluable throughout his degree and he still uses these skills everyday now. Being familiar with how to handle chemicals and safety procedures helped him to be able to focus on the science in hand instead of basic lab practice. Oliver has just graduated with a 2:1 in physics and has been offered to go straight onto a PhD program without doing a Masters first. “I plan to start in January and will be studying at the De Montfort University Institute of Holography. The official title of my research degree is “Modern holography techniques”. Holography is a branch of physics and chemistry which is a merge of arty and science with many different applications in the modern world.” To find out more visit DMUs Holographic Institute page.