Alumni - Helena Markou, BA Japanese with Publishing

If I am completely honest, when I started my BA at Oxford Brookes, I was not aware of the excellent reputation held by the Oxford Brookes Publishing Department. It was merely by chance that I added an introductory publishing module to my first year programme. However, the quality of tuition spoke for itself. I was so impressed by the course content, the vocational nature of assignments, and the refreshing teaching style of the Publishing Faculty that I soon found myself wanting to do more and more modules. ...

It is generally the case with higher education that you get back about as much as you put in. At Brookes, all my efforts were multiplied by the energy and enthusiasm of the Publishing faculty, who always had time to spare for students.

Having completely changed track in my second year, I graduated in 2007 with a first class BA in Japanese with Publishing. Whereas I had arrived at Brookes with little idea what I wanted to do upon graduation, I left university with a determination to make a career for myself. Armed by Brookes with plenty of practical skills to help me achieve this goal, I very quickly found a permanent job within the International Sales Support Team at Taylor & Francis (T&F).

After 16 months (and 2 Frankfurt Book Fairs) with T&F, I was ready for my next challenge and was thrilled to be appointed as the Oxford Brookes KTP Publishing Innovation Associate for Blackwell, ‘The Knowledge Retailer'. In this role, I am employed and mentored by Oxford Brookes University to manage a two-year product development project for Blackwell. I'm proud to be a part of the Brookes Publishing Team and excited to see what the future holds!

Posted on 25 Nov 2008 around 4pm