In the latest Women at Work series at Bolton School, Aanya Pitalia returned to talk to Year 10 girls virtually from Terminal 5 at Heathrow Airport, where she works as a Tax Manager.
Aanya recapped how she left in 2012, having progressed through Bolton School from 4 years old to the Sixth Form. She reflected how, whilst at school, she was very academic. She enjoyed lessons and the structure that school provided, but also did dancing outside of school. She talked about how she adjusted to the heavier workload in Year 10 and the realisation that almost everything you do from that stage onwards matters. When considering A Levels, she thought she might want to be a lawyer and, consequently, chose History. Other than that, she just chose subjects which she enjoyed and was good at (Maths, Spanish and French). She said she enjoyed her A Level years when classes were smaller and you developed a closer relationship with your teachers.
When choosing a university course, Aanya advised girls to ask themselves what they wanted their life to look like. As an example, Aanya is currently very happy with an office job where she can broadly work 9am - 5pm, because it allows her to take part in things outside of work too.
Advising the girls on choosing a university, Aanya said they should not stress too much about this; most UK universities are great and she did not know of anyone who regretted the university they had chosen. Aanya studied Law with Hispanic Law at UCL, because she was interested in Law and it gave her the opportunity to study abroad too. She emphasised that girls should take advantage of these years to try out different things, as it is true that these are probably the best times of your life.
By the time Aanya graduated in 2016, she had decided she did not want to pursue a legal career. Instead, she accepted a job with KPMG where she completed her tax and accountancy qualifications as part of a graduate scheme. She explained how professional services firms like KPMG are there to help other businesses – that could be with how to manage their people, their money, their technology, their marketing or anything else. Aanya specialised in tax, meaning she advises on what different strategic decisions might cost a business and its employees. It is easy to assume a career in Finance might be dull, but Aanya has learnt that it isn’t - she’s now working for Heathrow Airport and gets to be involved in everything the business does. She told the pupils that they should definitely talk to someone working in a particular field rather than make pre-judgements about any jobs. In closing, she assured girls that they can go wherever they want and do whatever they want if they put their minds to it.
Aanya then fielded a number of questions, including whether your degree restricts which jobs you can get, whether she had undertaken professional qualifications, whether she had utilised her university’s career services, what careers in actuarial services are like, and how best to go about time management.
