Neil Trigger

Who: Neil Trigger
What: BA I.T. with media (3rd year)
Where: Marjon, The College of St Mark & St John

My story is a little weird in comparison to many that you might hear. I'm older than many students for a start. I'm 26 (27 soon) and I'm now in my third year of a BA degree in I.T. with media. I started out in 1999 and at the time of writing this, it's 2007. Those of you good at maths will work out that that's not 3 years…

History of my beer paunch

In 1996 I left school and went to the college in Plymouth. I hung around, discovered beer and grew a healthy paunch before leaving with a mediocre pass for my BTEC National Diploma in Media Studies. I can honestly say that I learnt very little from my course, but I spent the majority of my time in the Library / Computer Suite, teaching myself web design skills (they were not part of the course) and chatting on the internet, which was a new phenomenon at the time.

Setting up my own business

After art college, in 1998 I left and set up my own business doing web design with my dad's business. It was okay and we had a few decent clients, but I got bored working from home ALL THE TIME, so I decided it was time to get a qualification and a career. That's when I came to college the first time.

My first brush with higher education

In 1999 I joined as a fresher (first year) at the College of St. Mark & St. John in Plymouth, studying I.T. with English Literature. What a stupid mistake. Initially English Literature was interesting, different and fairly easy. I got a girlfriend and let my college work slip and in the second semester things took a turn for the worse. I became disinterested, it was, by now, too late to change courses and I failed two of my modules. Unfortunately, I decided to go off and get a job.

Rubbish Jobs

After working in tonnes of rubbish jobs (fast food holes, toilet cleaning, smokey country pubs that smell like wet dog… you name it, I did it), I eventually landed a half-decent job at a call centre and eventually moved out with a new girlfriend who I met at work.

While the pay was pretty good for a call centre job, I still wanted to prove myself and I hated the fact that most of the people that called to complain about their phones not working seemed far less intelligent than me. Sick of taking abuse from stupid people, I decided to leave and start my own business again (this time doing magic). When my girlfriend became pregnant, I went and got another job at a 'phone call factory' (directory enquiries) pumping out 600 phone calls per person per day which, as you can imagine, got very boring. I quit there after a few months because it was SOOOOOO horrible and got another job at a web design company. Hooray!!

I did a few websites for them before being laid off during my paternity leave (I'm still rather bitter about that)…

I then got another job in… guess what… another call centre! This time I sold insurance to people who didn't want it. But, ultimately, the people were fantastic and I did that for around 6 months before it got boring. I could make sales easily and eventually I was asked if I could go onto the morning shift to help them out with their selling problem. I agreed, but didn't get on with the new – older – morning staff.

My return to higher education

So, in a bad mood and late for work one day I called in sick (very naughty, I know) and came up to my old college again. I asked the lovely people at the admissions office how hard it would be to rejoin and they helped me through every stage. Two weeks later I was back on the evening shift at the call centre and enrolled onto a new course in I.T. with Media.

I confess to finding it a little strange being around 5-6 years older than the majority of other students, at first. But after a few weeks, everything just fell into place and now I feel like I really belong.

My grades have improved. I think because I have had loads of rubbish experience, I now know what I DON'T want to do and that really motivates me.

I'm headed for a first class Honours degree at the moment.

Setting up my own company

By the way... the call centre company collapsed in my second year, so I went off and started my own web design company which is now making a good amount of money. I love it because it means that I can see my family, have enough money, work from home and still get my college work done.