July 2017
Kathy Nyaumwe
MA International Sustainable Tourism Management 2014
1. Tell us about yourself.
My name is Kathy Nyaumwe. I am a 27 year old female from Zimbabwe. I graduated from ARU in 2014. I studied an MA in International Sustainable Tourism Management
2. What is your fondest memory at Anglia Ruskin University?
My fondest memory of ARU are the friendships that I made. I had a major culture shock when I arrived at university but the friendships that I made there helped me settle. I can’t pin my memory to one specific event but my whole time at ARU was an experience that I will forever cherish.
3. What advice would you give to current students as they're preparing to graduate?
My advice to current students is that in as much as you are looking forward to what lies ahead, don’t forget where you came from or the invaluable things you learnt whilst you were still studying. Most of the life skills you learnt whilst studying will definitely come in handy at some point in time after you have graduated.
4. What do you know now that you wish you had known whilst you were studying?
I wish I had made the best of every moment and gone the extra mile to get to know everyone who was in my class. We were in a class full of people from different countries and cultures and I wish I could have taken more time to intentionally speak to them and hopefully establish lifelong friendships.
5. How did your time at Anglia Ruskin help you?
My time at ARU opened my eyes. It was life changing to say the least. I think I became more confident and assertive. Whilst I was there I knew that I was studying the right thing and I knew what I wanted to do in the future. My time at ARU reconfirmed what I was meant to do in life and what I was passionate about. And it took me being in a class full of like-minded people to realize that.
6. What did you love about your chosen course?
What I loved about my chosen course was the fact that it wasn’t entirely theoretical. They tried their best to have the practical aspect to what we were learning as well, which is always good for students. They made the teachings interactive as much as they could and that got all the students to participate. I remember traveling to Barcelona for one of our units for the course that we did. I love to travel and so traveling to study travel was just the icing on the cake for me.
7. What would you tell someone thinking of studying at ARU?
I would tell them that ARU is a university that truly has the development and education of the students at heart. They search for the best lecturers worldwide. I remember I was taught by people from Scotland, Greece, South America, India and so learning from them made that much more of a difference because they have been exposed internationally.
8. In one word how would you describe Anglia Ruskin?
Life changing
9. Who was the biggest influence on your career?
The biggest influence on my career was and is still my mother. She is also in the travel industry and seeing her evolve and grow in the industry and learning from her inspired me to do what she did and even better. I don’t know what I would be doing if she didn’t intentionally drag me from home every day after high school and take me to work with her so that I could learn the ropes of the travel industry from her perspective.
10. What accomplishment are you most proud of?
I am most proud of the fact that I attained my Master’s Degree and then used what I learnt from that degree to open up and run my own travel agency back home in Zimbabwe. I was helped and encouraged by my family by the exposure I received from being in the UK, living in Cambridge and learning at ARU changed me and allowed me to step into my own.
11. What advice would you give your younger self?
I would tell myself to not be afraid and to get out of my head. I was afraid of so many things and I still am today but I have overcome most of the fears from when I was younger and in retrospect they were not as big as I made them seem. They were all in my head.
12. What drives you?
What drives me is my love for God, my family and my business. In that order. Most of my friends call me a workaholic but this is only because I love what I do and I do not see myself doing anything else. I am determined to excel in the travel industry within my nation and in Africa as a whole.
13. What’s next?
What’s next for me is expansion. My goals are related to my business. So I would like to expand my operations locally and also venture into neighbouring countries. There is so much room for growth and expansion in the travel industry and I see endless opportunities for me to grow in the same respect. It’s onwards and upwards from here, braving the onwards.