Reece Heathcote - BA (Hons) Applied Sport

Tell us about yourself and what course you are on…

I am now on a Ba (Hons) applied sport and I have come through (West Suffolk College) so how I found out about the whole degree was through them. I did 2 years in sport and exercise science and just carried on my interest. I am in second year now and it is all going pretty well, I am still really interested.

What is the ambition? What do you see yourself doing after the course?

Well things are going pretty well at the moment with Gait and Motion so I am lucky to have found and be in a good position with them. I need to see out the degree and then keep improving in the role that I am in now. So, I am just keeping those for now and then I will see where I am in about a year and a half when the degree finishes.

What do Gait and Motion provide?

They are leading UK distributors of biomechanics solutions and their most prominent being Footscan. This gives the ability to provide gait analysis assessments to patients in private healthcare, as well as work with elite sport. One of our main focuses is injury prevention.

In your course do you learn about anatomy and physiology and the sort of things that Gait and Motion need to know?

Yeah, so a couple of things have already crossed over. We did anatomy last year and I believe that we have got biomechanics and statistics coming up next year so that will come in quite handy. And I think for the dissertation task next year as well, to be able to use some of (Gait and Motion’s) technology will be a massive advantage for myself.

At the moment we have got a contemporary issues module and one of the themes is to find a current issue within the industry so I am looking at healthcare workers wellbeing. One of the biggest things is that our distributor had a study, I think it was about 50% of the people in retail and hospitality sector actually report pain in their feet. As an actual dated study, it is really good from a University perspective to be able to use something like that.

Tell us about how you got into Gait and Motion in the first place…

Before September, the whole summer I had spent looking for anything in sport, I was kind of struggling to find anything industry specific… When it came to it I just asked (David from WSC) if he had anything that he knew about and that’s when he pointed me to a couple of spaces but from where he had pointed me, Gait and Motion specifically stood out…

…I think it would be good to see out the degree and then hopefully seek out a full time employment with them. It’s a slow break in… building on everything nice and gradually.

Did you start that as a work placement and then it moved into a more permanent role?

Yeah, so I got in touch with one of the directors initially just to ask if there’s anything they can do because they were already starting to work with the college. They had seen a group of students prior, and I sent a message on LinkedIn and that is when they arranged a zoom meeting and we discussed it a bit further. From there I started hanging around the guys more, learning more about what they do and stuff like that. And from there it just led into a part time employment eventually. It actually replaced my current role, I was working in retail so I just wanted something more industry specific and it has definitely given me that for sure.

Tell me about how you find studying at University Studies?

It is really handy for me because I know all of the lecturers personally based on my experience at the college so that has been really helpful as they already know me as a learner, and we know each other and how to work well. The locality of the site itself is really handy to me, especially only doing a day and a half on-site a week, it gives me a good amount of time to build with Gait and Motion and look for these other opportunities. Anyone who is in a similar situation wouldn’t have a hard time finding stuff that is out there because there is a lot of freedom.

If you were talking to someone who is perhaps at the college and thinking of progressing on, what advice would you give them?

I would definitely speak it up because for me it has been so handy to stay local in the area because you can build on these opportunities locally and you haven’t got to up and out everything. The classes are really small which is good because you are on a one-to-one basis with every lecturer and access to support is really easy.

What are you most proud of in your educational journey?

When I first pictured myself joining the college, I didn’t ever think that I was going to get to the point where I was going to go to University. Enrolling was quite a big thing for me because I didn’t know what I was going to do beforehand and finding these pathways has all come from being around this situation. So I think my proudest moment is helping myself and being helped along the way in finding my career path.