Features | By Hamdi Khalif
City through the generations
As well as careers for life, many at City have also found the loves of their lives. Such is the story of Katie and John Miller who first met at the Northampton ‘Notty’ Halls Bar, which was located in the area now occupied by Cass Business School undergraduates.
Today, it is succeeded by CityBar on the ground floor of the Tait Building. It was a tradition then for staff and students to congregate at the bar at 9.30 every evening. “I met John in the bar one night and asked if he could be a guinea pig patient for my next clinic” said Katie, then undertaking a degree in Ophthalmic Optics. It was City’s leading reputation in the field that drew her to study here and as someone raised in a small village in North Yorkshire, she was also excited by the prospect of being in London. John’s reasons for choosing City were more practical, “I wanted to work as well as learn”, and he felt City’s Civil Engineering sandwich course suited him perfectly.
John agreed to be Katie’s guinea pig but it was only through a shared appreciation of pizza that they properly got to know each other. He worked at the bar and this meant they could help themselves to out-of-hours pizza. “For the record, he paid for them” Katie clarifies and since then they have been together, marrying in 1983 and having two children. Bryoney, the younger, also studied at City. “I always knew of City through my parents” she says but was pleasantly surprised to learn of its world-leading Cass Business School, where she completed a masters in Marketing Strategy and Innovation in 2018. “It was a great course that provided me with both theoretical and practical experience.”
Such a practice-based approach has always distinguished City and attracted several generations of students. John and Katie were no different. John’s “thin sandwich” course, allowed him to undertake work alongside his studies while still on a three year course. He joined the Army Officer Training Corps in his first year, which prepared him for a career with the Ministry of Defence and the US Army, where he served for over 17 years. He then moved into account management in the IT sector, working for the likes of Peret Systems and BT Global Services. Katie also benefited from City’s hands-on approach and says “we were lucky enough in our third year to train at the London Refraction Hospital (now the Institute of Optometry)”. Even though this meant finishing at 9.00 pm most of the week, Katie is grateful for the opportunity to have trained at an excellent learning facility, which she believes gave her a strong clinical foundation and set her career in motion. Her skills took her to the US where she managed a large contact lens practice company and for several years, was responsible for staff training. Even though John and Katie studied two very different degrees, their City qualifications took them across the world.
Today, the world comes to City with a student cohort hailing from over 160 countries. Bryoney found this diversity to be a source of inspiration. She comments “my cohort was extremely culturally diverse with classmates coming from India and America, with different educational and cultural backgrounds and varying approaches to work. Initially, it was a little challenging to adapt to new ways of thinking and working but that has definitely helped me now that I am working. Plus the more diverse a group, the more creative the ideas!”
The City Bryoney remembers is unsurprisingly very different from that of her parents. While Bryoney looks back on meetings over coffee in nearby Shoreditch, her parents recall £1 tickets to theatre shows in the West End and dance music blaring through Halls. University life changed considerably too. At one point there was an Optometry Society Review, which was a chance to rib the lecturers; and yearly icebreakers at the Admission Tutor’s house. “Jack Davy [the Admissions Tutor] always went the extra mile to make every student feel included” says Katie and it is members of staff like Jack that continue to make City a special place. John particularly remembers Dr Scott’s unmissable Soil Mechanics classes in the early 1980s and Bryoney recalls Dr Jonathon Luffarelli, who imparted the importance of punctuality: “he made me permanently scared of being late for anything which I think is an excellent trait!”
When John and Katie visited the campus earlier in the year, they were astonished at the many developments since undertaking their undergraduate degrees. With then only one building on Northampton Square, City has expanded to a complex of five individual buildings on its historic site, their architecture a visual representation of the time in which they were built.
While taking this trip down memory lane, John mentions that he is considering undertaking a masters degree. Will he return to City, University of London, where his career first began?
As well as careers for life, many at City have also found the loves of their lives. Such is the story of Katie and John Miller who first met at the Northampton ‘Notty’ Halls Bar, which was located in the area now occupied by Cass Business School undergraduates. Today, it is succeeded by CityBar on the ground floor of the Tait Building. It was a tradition then for staff and students to congregate at the bar at 9.30 every evening. “I met John in the bar one night and asked if he could be a guinea pig patient for my next clinic” said Katie, then undertaking a degree in Ophthalmic Optics. It was City’s leading reputation in the field that drew her to study here and as someone raised in a small village in North Yorkshire, she was also excited by the prospect of being in London. John’s reasons for choosing City were more practical, “I wanted to work as well as learn”, and he felt City’s Civil Engineering sandwich course suited him perfectly.
Such a practice-based approach has always distinguished City and attracted several generations of students. John and Katie were no different. John’s “thin sandwich” course, allowed him to undertake work alongside his studies while still on a three year course. He joined the Army Officer Training Corps in his first year, which prepared him for a career with the Ministry of Defence and the US Army, where he served for over 17 years. He then moved into account management in the IT sector, working for the likes of Peret Systems and BT Global Services. Katie also benefited from City’s hands-on approach and says “we were lucky enough in our third year to train at the London Refraction Hospital (now the Institute of Optometry)”. Even though this meant finishing at 9.00 pm most of the week, Katie is grateful for the opportunity to have trained at an excellent learning facility, which she believes gave her a strong clinical foundation and set her career in motion. Her skills took her to the US where she managed a large contact lens practice company and for several years, was responsible for staff training. Even though John and Katie studied two very different degrees, their City qualifications took them across the world.
Today, the world comes to City with a student cohort hailing from over 160 countries. Bryoney found this diversity to be a source of inspiration. She comments “my cohort was extremely culturally diverse with classmates coming from India and America, with different educational and cultural backgrounds and varying approaches to work. Initially, it was a little challenging to adapt to new ways of thinking and working but that has definitely helped me now that I am working. Plus the more diverse a group, the more creative the ideas!”
The City Bryoney remembers is unsurprisingly very different from that of her parents. While Bryoney looks back on meetings over coffee in nearby Shoreditch, her parents recall £1 tickets to theatre shows in the West End and dance music blaring through Halls. University life changed considerably too. At one point there was an Optometry Society Review, which was a chance to rib the lecturers; and yearly icebreakers at the Admission Tutor’s house. “Jack Davy [the Admissions Tutor] always went the extra mile to make every student feel included” says Katie and it is members of staff like Jack that continue to make City a special place. John particularly remembers Dr Scott’s unmissable Soil Mechanics classes in the early 1980s and Bryoney recalls Dr Jonathon Luffarelli, who imparted the importance of punctuality: “he made me permanently scared of being late for anything which I think is an excellent trait!”
When John and Katie visited the campus earlier in the year, they were astonished at the many developments since undertaking their undergraduate degrees. With then only one building on Northampton Square, City has expanded to a complex of five individual buildings on its historic site, their architecture a visual representation of the time in which they were built.
While taking this trip down memory lane, John mentions that he is considering undertaking a masters degree. Will he return to City, University of London, where his career first began?