Kiera Hewitt
Kiera graduated from our BA (Hons) English Literature in 2024, and now works as Customer Service Advisor for Cambridge University Press and Assessment on their Cambridge English exams.
Did you always know that you would go to university and if not, what changed your mind?
I actually never intended to go to university. I didn’t really have a plan, but university definitely wasn’t part of it! I took my A-levels at the College of West Anglia in Kings Lynn - English language and literature, Sociology, and History - and originally applied for the English literature course there, as I already knew the area and it didn't involve moving away. I knew that CoWA’s University Centre and ARU were connected, and that ARU ran a BA English literature too. So I looked around the ARU Cambridge Campus and their larger library, and that was what swayed my decision. Originally I’d hoped to commute rather than move and at that time lockdown was coming to an end, so a lot of the work was still online – Cambridge just seemed to tick all my boxes. I only had to commute for two or three days a week in my first year, and it was only about 40 minutes on the train.
But gradually I realised I wasn’t getting the most out of the physical facilities at ARU, or the experience of uni life itself, so I decided to move to Cambridge. Although I was only studying one subject now, it was so in-depth that I wanted to be more involved and immersed in the learning on campus, studying in the library and things like that.
What inspired you to study English literature in the first place?
I know people who have gone through their educational journey but still haven’t found their thing, so I've been very fortunate that reading, writing and English have just always been, for want of a better word, my “thing”. It’s something I never got tired of, even after years and years of doing it throughout school. And I thought, ”Well, if I'm going to university, I don't want to spend three years doing something that I don't enjoy.” So it was never really a hard decision. It was English or nothing!
When you tell people you’re studying English, they always say: “Oh, what's your favourite book? You must have a favourite book.” But for me it's more just the study of the subject as a whole. Obviously, I have authors I particularly love, like Virginia Woolf – I wrote my dissertation on three of her books – and growing up I absolutely loved Jacqueline Wilson and Michael Morpurgo. At university we covered a lot of different time periods and genres, and by the end I discovered that I lean more towards contemporary modernist texts and books. I really like Sally Rooney and Khaled Hosseini – I've read three of his books at least three times in the last two months! They’re absolutely amazing.
What’s the most valuable thing you took away from your education?
Another thing people say when you’re studying English lit is: “Oh, that must be so much reading,” but for me that was the biggest plus! You're broadening your knowledge so much, and reading so many different types of texts from different times – all the way from Beowulf to Sally Rooney.
The most valuable thing I learned is to never shut yourself off from a certain genre of text. It's so easy to get caught up in this kind of classification, and that can sometimes be reductive to the text itself. Sometimes you find the things that stick with you are the ones you don’t initially think you'll like or understand.
One thing my lecturers always told me was if you don't like a text or don't necessarily agree with it, that can actually be infinitely valuable because it gives you so much more to say about it, particularly for essays. It can still teach you a lot and deepen your knowledge. There are so many books and texts that I've read on the course that I would never have read otherwise, and every text has something you can learn from it. That's something that can't be dismissed.
Kiera at Cambridge University Press and Assessment's Project Management Day
Which aspects of the course most helped your career development, and why?
I worked on a project with the National Centre for Writing in Norwich called A Life Written, that I found really inspiring. It was organised by one of our lecturers, Dr Tory Young, to support senior citizens to write about their lives, and she invited a group of us from ARU to write pieces in response to theirs. All the writings were put together in a printed anthology, and we had an event at Dragon Hall where we performed readings of them.
I wrote my own response to a really emotional piece a lady had written about her best friend passing away. When I had to read it out I got really upset and started crying. Coming outside of the university setting to interact with people from different backgrounds, ages, and careers, showed me how writing and reading can really bring people together. That was huge for me, and made me want to pursue a career in people and communication.
If you look at the skills I gained from the course on paper and the job I’m doing now, you might not draw many connections. But the importance of having effective communication skills and using your voice, whether in writing or to help someone with their exams, cannot be underestimated.
What opportunities did you have to take part in live briefs and placements during the course?
In the first year we did a live brief with Cambridge University Press and Assessment. It was a group project – we were all given the same chapter from an author’s work and asked to edit it, then present our comments and suggestions to two members of CUPA. That was really good because we had to communicate with each other effectively on a broader scale.
I also got help from someone in ARU’s Careers and Employability Service to find a placement, and ending up working for eight months as a junior content analyst in CUPA’s Portfolio Office. I established a monthly newsletter for them, which involved meeting with people in the company to generate content, and editing it, as well as organising and planning the release of the newsletter. So it was very relevant to everything I was doing at university at the time.
What piece of advice would you give to your younger self?
If you enjoy doing something, stick with it. That's obviously easy for me to say having done English, but whatever it is, just stick with it. Don't let impostor syndrome take over and make you think you aren't good enough.
That’s something you don't realise is happening until you're a bit older, but to my teenage self I would say this mentality of “fake it ‘til you make it” might be great in the short term, but in the long term don't spend so much time and energy convincing yourself that you're faking it, and that you don't deserve the opportunities you get. It's so easy to get caught in the trap of internalising the idea that “I'm just faking it. I'm just an imposter.”
There's a fine line between that and putting your best foot forward and presenting your best self. Actually believe in yourself and tell yourself that you are worthy and deserving of the opportunities – because if you weren't you wouldn't be there. Don’t let it overshadow all your achievements and hard work.
Kiera with her team at Cambridge University Press and Assessment
What was your favourite thing about studying in Cambridge, and what did you learn about it that you didn’t know before?
There's always something going on. It's such a lively cultural city in terms of the history, the art, the museums. Wherever you go and wherever you look there's some kind of history, and I think it’s just great to learn about that.
And the museums are hidden in plain sight in some instances. Definitely the Fitzwilliam and the Polar Museum were places that I didn't know existed.
The University of Cambridge library too – I've spent some time studying in there, and in terms of a study environment, it’s really, really good. Something I didn't know before is that any ARU student can get access to it. One of our lecturers, Dr Cassie Gorman, told us about it, which was super helpful.
What projects are you currently working on, both at work and outside it?
I only recently started my role at CUPA, so I’m jumping in the deep end and getting as much training as possible. There's so much they offer, so many different exams in so many different countries, both digital and paper-based. I’m trying to absorb as much as I can and take advantage of all the knowledge and opportunities around me.
Outside of work, I’m focusing on finding out what kind of books I want to read now. Even at A-level and GCSE, the majority of your reading is dictated to you, so once I finished my studies I asked myself: “What do I actually enjoy reading now?” I'm still not sure! So I’m figuring it out, and developing my own interests.
And it's never-ending! You find one book and that inevitably leads you onto a different book by the same author or something related. I take a lot of books out from the local library, but one bad habit I've gotten into is I'll read them once or twice, return them, then think: “Oh my God, I love that book so much. I need to get my own copy!” It's a bad cycle, and there's not enough shelf space sadly!