Charlotte Wheeldon

My mother is a business psychologist and I had always been interested by her work and the way the human mind worked. I studied Psychology at A-Level and this only peaked my interest further. When I started looking into doing a psychology degree, I noticed all the modules I was most interested in were the ones that fell more into the Criminology and Sociology categories. I had never heard of Criminology before this! So that’s how I landed on Criminology and Social Policy. Loughborough had the best mix of modules available and I thought it would be a great place to explore the subject further.

I loved the diversity of modules on offer at Loughborough. I studied things you’d expect from the degree like the History of Social Policy or Crime and Social Welfare, but then also had the opportunity to study Human Sexualities, Women and Crime, Health & Illness, and so many more from the Social Sciences.

My time at Loughborough developed me as an individual more than I ever expected. I was launched out of my comfort zone, moving a few hours away from home with no friends. Living in halls (Cayley – the best!) and having to be bold and make friends out of nowhere really helped prepare me for moving to Sydney knowing no one all over again! I became a much more confident person because everyone at Loughborough was so welcoming, so enthusiastic and just as excited as I was to be there!

Do it! It’s a really worthwhile degree and will keep you interested throughout. Be prepared for some confronting content though! When I was researching for my dissertation on sex trafficking in the UK there were times when I wondered why I’d chosen such a topic. But educating myself on the issue resulted in me volunteering with a fantastic charity when I arrived in Sydney and that’s an experience I’ll be forever grateful for! 

After graduating I worked in Real Estate in London for about 18 months. I loved the fast paced nature of the job and learnt some crucial skills in negotiation and sales. However I had always wanted to live in Australia for a year and when I decided it was time for a career change I thought it might be a good time for a location change too! So I moved to Australia at the beginning of 2013 and worked a series of temp jobs while I found my feet and explored Sydney. By the end of my first year I had decided that Sydney life was for me and being offered a permanent role at an international recruitment agency was the push I needed to decide to stay on for a little while later. I worked for that agency for 2 years before being offered an internal recruiter role at Macquarie. Less than a year into this role I was given the opportunity to do a secondment in the Graduate Recruitment Team, which turned into a permanent placement. After a little over a year and a half hiring graduates and interns into Macquarie I took a big leap into the project space and am now a Change Manager looking after our Client Lifecycle Management team within Market Operations.

I have been in my current role for about 8 months now and I am absolutely loving it. It was a big challenge at the beginning, and continues to be so, but I quite thrive in challenging environments so it’s suiting me quite well so far! I am responsible for the coordination and communication surrounding significant business change and ensuring our staff and stakeholders are well informed, appropriately trained and prepared for the upcoming changes. Working for an international investment bank means that there is almost always changes happening around us so I am kept very busy!

I love working for Macquarie. They are an exceptional company to work for. They’re incredibly innovative in their approach to business, they encourage their staff to act boldly, work collaboratively and constantly embrace a learning mindset. I feel inspired by the people I’m surrounded by and the work that they do every day, which makes coming into work much more a joy than a chore!

Hopefully a very successful career that takes me all over the world!