Work-life balance dissertation earns graduate top prize
Tue, 21 Jul 2015 08:55:00 BST
Business Management graduate Katharine Woodhead now starts her career in HR for Huddersfield firm Equi-Trek
KATHARINE Woodhead began working life as a swimming pool lifeguard. She then became a personal trainer and ran fitness classes. But now she is super-fit for a career in business after scoring a major success in her degree course at the University of Huddersfield.
She studied for a BA in Business Management, earning First Class Honours. Her exceptionally high marks mean that she is a winner of one of the Chancellor’s Prizes that are awarded annually to the top echelon of students.
While working hard for her degree, Katharine – aged 27, from Holmfirth – also continued to teach fitness classes. This packed schedule meant that she became expert at juggling her work-life balance – and that was just the subject she researched for a dissertation that received an award for being the best of her year. She has been presented with the Oxford University Press Bryman and Bell Prize for Undergraduate Research Methods.
Her project centred on male attitudes to the work-life balance – a subject she feels has been under-researched – and she focussed on the attitudes of University of Huddersfield academic staff. A questionnaire that she circulated received an exceptionally high response rate.
Among her findings was that attitudes towards work-life balance did not differ between men with or without children, although further research is needed, she feels. Katharine also established that the University has very good systems in place for work-life balance and to support staff.
She received her earlier education at Huddersfield Grammar School and Huddersfield New College, where she studied sport, psychology and French. Then she became a lifeguard at Holmfirth Swimming Pool. This led to career as gym instructor and personal trainer.
“I had become self-employed as a personal trainer but it wasn’t quite for me and I wanted a change, so I decided to retrain,” said Katharine. Knowing that the University of Huddersfield’s Business School had an excellent reputation she enrolled for a course that would serve her well.
“It opens doors to all sorts of careers if you do a business management degree,” said Katharine, and she now begins work as a Human Resources (HR) administrator with Britain’s largest horse-box manufacturer, Equi-Trek, based in Meltham.
Future plans include developing her HR expertise by working for a Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development diploma, and another goal is to carry out research for a University of Huddersfield Master’s degree.
