What job/study are you doing right now and tell us a little about it?
I'm currently a Personal Banker for Barclays in Wavertree, I've been there since October 2015. Prior to that I worked for The Leather Satchel Company for 3 years.
Did you do any further/higher education?
After I left high school I studied at Carmel College for 2 years - Psychology, Law, English and Computing. I haven't quite found myself on the path to university yet but in all honesty it has never really been something that has appealed to me. That being said, never say never!
How did you decide on your career path and what is/was most interesting about your work?
I didn't really set out to work within the fashion/leather industry or recently the Financial/banking industry. It was (for myself) merely a case of opportunity and they are both opportunities that I am grateful to have received and I'm happy that I followed them. With working at Barclays, it's an interesting job because I get to speak to a wide variety of people from all walks of life and help them out and each day is never quite the same! You can spend two minutes on the phone giving someone a balance on their account or you could spend 20 minutes (or longer!) checking transactions, reporting potential fraud etc.
Can you share a couple of fond memories of your time at St Cuthbert's?
I think it's genuinely hard to pick out a few specific memories over 5 great years. I always enjoyed being involved in the school productions, I made some great friends during the shows and it encouraged me to keep up with music. I also loved the Monday night football with Dave and the Friday night football against the teachers!
Did you have a favourite/influential teacher? What made them so important to you?
Again, it's hard to pick one teacher really. I think for me it would be Mr Butterworth. It may be a bit of an obvious choice if you consider that he was my form tutor but he was always around if you ever needed to talk about anything, really down to earth and liked Red Dwarf... Can't go wrong really! In all seriousness though, I think when you see someone every day of the week for 4 years they have an influence on you and all of the teachers were great.
What advice would you give our current students?
It's a cliche but just enjoy your time there whilst you can. We've all complained about doing homework and lessons and it being boring but the truth is you'll miss it when you're gone. You take a lot away with you when you leave school and I think that if one of those things is good memories, you're on the right path to whatever you want to do with your life.
Name: Paul Donnelly