Becca Rountree (English Language, 2014, Furness) tells how her love of Pokémon, coupled with her studies and the skills she attained at Lancaster enable her to find her dream job.

"Besides “go to university”, I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I left school. I was a curious but introverted East Midlander with an odd collection of A-Levels and a few very narrow interests, and I was concerned I was a puzzle piece that wouldn’t really tessellate well anywhere. Lancaster provided the environment I was looking for. I found myself following the path of many a career-agnostic student in choosing to study something that I enjoyed and did well at, and Lancaster was one of a small number of universities offering a BA in English Language and Creative Writing; two areas that fit the bill for me. When I eventually found I wasn’t vibing with the Creative Writing course, Lancaster made it easy to switch to pure English Language in my second year without missing a beat. As for those narrow interests I mentioned, well, they had an outlet too. I found a handful of people with those same interests and sat next to them in lectures, those people met others from different colleges, and with a nervous yet determined Becca at the helm, a core group of awkward, lovable nerds from Furness, Grizedale, County, and Fylde banded together to form Lancaster University Pokémon Society. Pokésoc, its quirks and its traditions remain strong, and the society recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. The experience I gained from Lancaster - studies in organisational and corporate linguistics, managing a successful student society, analysing and improving my employability with the Lancaster Excellence Award, and the acknowledgement and celebration of this one narrow interest that persisted throughout my university life combined with a touch of luck and some clutch networking to help score me what I might describe as my dream job working for the Pokémon Company International. A little over a year after I graduated from Lancaster, I moved to London to begin working for the company’s UK branch. Six years later, I have been transferred to the head office in Seattle, and am about to begin a new chapter of my life in the United States. My work has taken me all over the world, from all over Europe to down to Australia, from Malaysia to Brazil, and next weekend I will be heading out to Chile to check out how one of my program’s initiatives is being executed there for the first time. I still keep a Lancaster Pokésoc flyer in my purse wherever I go to remind me of where my journey began. Lancaster provided a foundation that enabled and nurtured my talents and passions, and without it, I would never have found my way here."