Meet Your Colleagues - Elizabeth Phillips

Here at SERC we are keen to promote internal colleagues to allow staff the opportunity to get to know each other and put a face to the name, particularly due to the size and scope of SERC.

This week’s “Meet your Colleagues” features Elizabeth Phillips. Elizabeth is an intern within the School of Hospitality, Management, Tourism and Languages department here at SERC. 

What does your role at SERC involve?

I’m lucky to have quite a varied role as a new intern. My day usually involves general admin for events and competitions, a little graphic design work, and working on wider team projects such as attaining the Calorie Wise award across the campuses.  

Tell us a bit about your background?

I studied at SRC Newry after completing my A Levels to better prepare myself for a more practical university course and decided a few months into my studies that I wanted to pursue a career in a FE/HE college environment. When I saw SERC advertising the Graduate Intern Academy after my graduation last July, it sounded like a great opportunity. I have a BA (Hons) in Fine Art and loved the variety of skills needed for the course. Whether it was curating public group exhibitions, studying history and theory, or doing graphic design work and fundraising for public events, I really thrived in the diversity of the course… And the transferable skills have been very useful in this position.  

What 3 words best describe you?

- Perfectionist

- Creative

- Foodie  

What do you like to do outside of work?

I’m a photography hobbyist and love walking, so I try and get out as much as possible at the weekends. My Dad and I are currently trying to tick off every mountain and fairly large hill in NI… However, stopping to take photographs every few metres on a hike means it’ll take us quite a while to achieve that. I’m also a big heavy metal fan and go to a lot of concerts with my partner. There’s a few shows this summer that I’m really looking forward to!  

If you could swap jobs for a day who would it be and why?

I would love to swap jobs with Jessica Meir; one of the two female astronauts to be part of the first ever all-female spacewalk in history. Her career has also included human space life science experiments and being an aquanaut at an undersea research laboratory. I can’t imagine a more interesting career. 

List 3 items you would want with you if you were stranded on a deserted island?

Assuming I already have the basics for survival, I would want my camera, something to play music on and a lot of chocolate, or cheese… or maybe just a regenerating pantry of nice foods? 

What is your favourite film and why?

I don’t have a favourite film and honestly, I’m more of a series binge-watcher. Though I really loved the Witcher series on Netflix recently, and tend to watch a lot of fantasy films.  

Where do you most want to travel, but have never been? 

I’d love to travel to Sweden. I’ve recently taken an interest in genealogy and discovered I have Swedish ancestors, so it would be interesting to learn a bit more about the country. I’ve also found out that Swedish people have crayfish parties in the summer which sounds equal parts hilarious and delicious, so I’d like to go to one of those.  

If you would like to partake in “Meet Your Colleagues” please contact Calum Donaldson (Marketing and Engagement Intern) at cdonaldson@serc.ac.uk for more details.