{"id":981,"date":"2020-11-16T09:23:59","date_gmt":"2020-11-16T09:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/?p=981"},"modified":"2020-11-16T09:24:41","modified_gmt":"2020-11-16T09:24:41","slug":"981","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/2020\/11\/16\/981\/","title":{"rendered":"Promise Ahante, Taught Postgraduate, Department of Earth Science &amp; Engineering"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"512\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-982\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/files\/2020\/11\/20-10-Imperial-People_Twitter_Promise-1024x512.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<h3><b><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u201cThe pandemic was initially very disruptive, but Imperial really helped to reduce the negative impact.\u201d<\/span><\/b><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">I\u2019m a\u00a0Master\u2019s\u00a0student in Petroleum Engineering in the\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imperial.ac.uk\/earth-science\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Department of Earth Science and Engineering<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\">. I did my first degree in Petroleum and Gas Engineering in Nigeria, which is where I\u2019m from. The major resource we have in Nigeria is\u00a0petroleum\u00a0so I was influenced by my surroundings.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">When I graduated in 2016, I worked for a short while, but I\u00a0wasn\u2019t able to\u00a0get a job directly in the energy industry. I decided to go back to university to build some skills. As an international student the fees were very expensive but fortunately, Shell sponsored me for my Master\u2019s. Imperial is a fantastic university and particularly well-regarded in the industry, so it was a great opportunity for me.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">My course is intense and designed to transition people into specific parts of the industry so it\u2019s very focused with lots of practical skills development. That means in normal life we\u2019re in classes 9-5 almost every day.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">During my undergraduate degree, I was already heavily involved in leadership and volunteering. The\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imperial.ac.uk\/earth-science\/prosp-students\/pg-courses\/opportunities-in-london\/spe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Society of Petroleum Engineers<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u00a0(SPE) has lots of representation across universities so when I moved to London, I got involved in the Imperial branch and became president. We ended up having a\u00a0really productive\u00a0year. We did a lot of outreach work, particularly in promoting interest in STEM in schools, and held events to promote leadership in STEM among women. As a result of this work, the Imperial branch ultimately received the SPE Presidential Award for Outstanding Student Chapter.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">At the same time as I was doing this work,\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/blackimpact.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Black Impact<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u00a0opened nominations for their Black Impact Class of 2020 awards, designed to celebrate the Black community in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests. I was nominated for and subsequently awarded the\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/blackimpact.co.uk\/about-class-of-2020\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-contrast=\"none\">Leadership and All-Round Excellence Awards by the organisation<\/span><\/a><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u00a0for the work I have done with the Society of Petroleum Engineers to organise events, fundraise and promote diversity and inclusion. It\u2019s so important that Black Impact is shining a light on the amazing work being done by young Black people and it was an honour to receive this award.<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-contrast=\"none\">The pandemic was initially very disruptive, but Imperial really helped to reduce the negative impact. The point that the pandemic hit was when, ordinarily, we would have been applying to jobs to complete our MSc projects with. As we couldn\u2019t access internships, Imperial connected us with industry partners<\/span><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u00a0to supervise our projects<\/span><span data-contrast=\"none\">\u00a0I still had a great learning experience as I worked on an industry project with a career supervisor and an academic supervisor. I\u2019m so grateful for the time I&#8217;ve had here.\u00a0<\/span><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe pandemic was initially very disruptive, but Imperial really helped to reduce the negative impact.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m a\u00a0Master\u2019s\u00a0student in Petroleum Engineering in the\u00a0Department of Earth Science and Engineering. I did my first degree in Petroleum and Gas Engineering in Nigeria, which is where I\u2019m from. The major resource we have in Nigeria is\u00a0petroleum\u00a0so I was influenced [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1505,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1505"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=981"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":984,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions\/984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/imperial-people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}