Nathaniel left St Augustine's and went to University to read Chemistry.

• Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic First School, 2001 - 2005
• St Bede’s Catholic Middle School, 2005 - 2009
• St Augustine’s Catholic High School and Sixth Form, 2009 - 2014

After Sixth Form I went to the University of Hull, where I completed a Masters in Chemistry, (after completing a Foundation course, I switched to the Bachelors, and then Integrated Masters Course, 2014-2019).  After graduation, I carried out mainly temping work, looking for a career within the chemical industry, until Jan-20 when I landed my first 'proper' job. It was a sixth month contract for an industrial chemicals company, working in the Quality Control department as an analyst.  I was carrying out QC work on formulations for resin based flooring systems. The contract expired six months later, and by then we were in the midst of the first lockdown in May. Things were looking fairly bleak, and I was feeling dissatisfied within the private sector. Whilst I immensely enjoyed my time at university, I was struggling to engage within the industry itself.  With the ongoing pandemic, I wanted to support the NHS and so made contact to understand if my chemistry expertise could transfer into a career within a hospital.

I have now enrolled onto a Trainee Pharmacy Technicians course, part of a two year contract at Walsall Manor Hospital.  I am therefore in college once a week whilst training to be a fully accredited pharmacy technician.  Whilst it is good to finally have a stable career path ahead of me, the key connection is that I am making a meaningful contribution both to my life and to the life of others.  Each day I leave work feeling satisfied that I am supporting others, working with people who care about others and most importantly, I feel valued.  It has certainly proved an interesting time to work in the NHS - there's a lot of running around (top tip - invest in a good pair of insoles for your shoes!).  With the upsurge of Covid-19 patients, Walsall Manor is far busier than during the first wave and it is certain to become much worse before it gets better.  It is very apparent that we must all absolutely adhere to the rules set out to keep everyone safe.  I will be receiving the vaccine soon and urge everyone to do the same; life will return to normality eventually, but until then, there are sadly no shortcuts to stopping the spread of Coronavirus.