International Women's Day: 60 Second With...Sahara Sultana

Tell us about your role at the University

I am the Admissions Administrator for Undergraduate and Postgraduate (Taught) programmes in the Geography Department. I am responsible for all the Open Day arrangements, both virtual and on-campus, and the communication with prospective students and offer holders.

In my role I get to work with various tutors and engage with a variety of students and colleagues across multiple teams to make sure I can help the Department showcase the amazing work we do, both across our teaching and research, in our student recruitment and conversion activities.

This is something I am passionate about, naturally, as I have now been working at UCL Geography for 19 years!

What inspires you in your work?

I work in a wonderful Department that is caring and supportive, and my colleagues are exceptional. Each year I am also proud of how the diversity amongst our student cohort has grown bigger and bigger, with last year our efforts yielded our largest intake of Widening Participation students to date.

I also thoroughly enjoy working with new groups of our Student Ambassadors each year and get to know them quite well. Some of them surprise me when they come in on the first day of term to say hello and explain that the contact and engagement during the application process and the time in between has fostered a real sense of belonging to the Department. That really inspires me, and I know I am making a difference.

What has been your most memorable career moment so far?

My most memorable career moment must be returning back to campus after COVID and holding the first on-campus Open Day. I never realised I would miss it so much. There is something about being able to welcome prospective students to the Department that simply cannot be replicated virtually.

I am also extremely proud of the support that we gave to our offer holders during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a very turbulent time and the student journey from School/Further Education College is a very big step and naturally students are nervous and so I was proud to be able to keep all the messaging consistent ready for the student arrival.

We were able to create an engaging and user-friendly blog for offer holders along with other initiatives to encourage contact with us.

What passions/hobbies do you have outside work?

I absolutely love up-cycling and gardening and I think I exceeded even my own expectations when I managed to learn how to do stencilling with no bleeding. I have completely changed items of old and battered furniture to beautiful works of art.

I am also an avid gardener and have been doing no-dig gardening in my allotment for the last three years. It’s a joy to be able to grow your own, and so much fun. I especially look forward to trying our new heirloom varieties of tomato seeds.

Who is your feminist hero?

Michelle Obama. She is inspirational and a role model for so many young women around the world!