Interview with Megan Clarke
Megan Clarke graduated from Leeds in 2017 with a BA in English and Spanish. Having studied at La Universitat de Barcelona during her Erasmus year in 2015/16, Megan moved straight back to the Catalan capital upon completing her degree and now works in tourism.
Tell me about your current role
Sandemans New Europe is a tourism company that offers a variety of tours in 20 cities throughout Europe and now in the USA and Israel too. My current job as Meeting Point Manager involves organising the tours, guides and guests around a specific point in the city. This involves practical things like splitting people into groups, collecting tickets and answering peoples’ questions as well as some admin work. Recently I also started to manage the Instagram page for Sandemans New Barcelona.
How do you think your degree helped you get the job you have now?
I think mainly because I studied Spanish that was a massive help, and also speaking Catalan helps a lot when you work in Barcelona. Not just because it’s the language they speak here, but also studying a language teaches you great communication skills. The job that I have involves a lot of customer service, talking to different people and switching between languages constantly. Also, the organisational and time-management skills I gained from my degree help me a lot with organising tours around the city.
What sort of challenges did you face when you moved abroad?
When I first moved here on my Erasmus year no one would speak to me in Spanish or Catalan because as soon as they heard my accent or just saw me they would know I spoke English, so that was a problem because I felt like I wasn’t improving my language at all. Especially when I first got here and my language was nowhere near the level it’s at now and Barcelona is such touristy city; often it was easier to speak in English. Eventually I just kept on replying in Spanish or Catalan and persisting until I became more fluent and people stopped speaking to me in English.
Do you have any recommendations for getting into your field of work?
In tourism, studying or speaking another language that isn’t your own is definitely a massive advantage. Not only are you going to be able to speak with more people, but, like I said earlier, it’s the communication skills you get from it that are really going to help as well. I also think it’s really important to have a genuine interest in the place you’re working in, be it a city or country. Working in tourism you need to have an interest in the place, culture and traditions of the target country because you’re always going to be asked questions about everything to do with it. If you’re not really that interested, then you’re definitely going to struggle to really enjoy your line of work.
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Have the interviews in the Alumni Voices Abroad series been helpful to you? What insights would you like to gain from future interviews with our alumni? All feedback on the series is welcome, please send this via email to lcsemployability@leeds.ac.uk