“I was born and brought up in Kerala in India and I achieved a first class degree in Mathematics from Kerala.  After coming to UK in 1996, to join my husband, I attended Croydon College to do Access Course in Mathematics and Computer Science. The Access Course enabled me to read Masters in Scientific and Engineering Software Technology at the University of Greenwich.  Since 2000, I have been working as a Software Engineer. Croydon College has played an important role in my success as it had the right careers advisor and the right course for me to reach where I wanted to get to.

In 2006, I became a Councillor for Broad Green ward in London Borough of Croydon. During my Mayoral year, I visited Croydon College on various occasions such as UNICEF pledge award, Cultural Awareness Month Celebration, Further Education Awards and Graduation ceremony. I was really pleased to speak to a number of students, who were volunteering during the academic year and contributing to our borough.

My theme during my Mayoral year was celebrating the rich diversity and culture of Croydon and promoting volunteering. Croydon College’s participation in promoting volunteering was invaluable and congratulations to Frances Wandsworth, CEO, the staff and the students for their contribution.”

“Studying Mechanical Engineering at Croydon College was undoubtedly a transformational experience. I found the tutors to be extremely enthusiastic and always willing to go the extra mile to help you succeed. Also, as a former Student President of the college, I found the diverse and engaging nature of the student body to be a highly enriching experience.  As a result, I gained a rounded yet academically rigorous education that helped me progress onto university as an Ironmongers’ Scholar. In 2014, I graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Engineering and currently work as an Analyst at J.P. Morgan in Canary Wharf. I believe the experience I gained at the college will be of value throughout my career.”

Tahliah Barnett aka FKA Twiggs studied for her A Levels at Croydon College in 2006 before moving into the music industry. She was initially a dancer for other acts before developing her own look and sound as a singer songwriter. FKA Twiggs has been nominated for various awards including Mercury Prize, BBC Sound of 2014, Grammy, NME and Brit Awards, and in 2015 she won a Youtube Music Award.

Noel Fielding attended Croydon School of Art in the late 1980s and was taught by Turner-prize nominated Dexter Dalwood. Noel has since gone on to write and star in various tv hits such as The Mighty Boosh, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and the IT Crowd.

Leslie Gort-Barten gradually took over the running of Dualit from his father (who founded the company) in the 1980s. Leslie had an excellent background for his work having studied engineering at Croydon College and served a tool-making apprenticeship.

Jamie Reid and Malcolm McLaren studied together at Croydon School of Art before they went on to play influential roles in the success of the Sex Pistols. Jamie designed many of the band’s album covers and artwork while Malcolm, who had helped initiate the punk movement, managed the band.

Daniel Potter is co-founder and Creative Director at Creative Works, a London-based branding and content creation studio formed in 2013. They specialise in creating high-impact content for live events, broadcast and social media for a diverse range of clients including Guns N’ Roses, FOX Sports, Tottenham Hotspur FC, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Coca Cola, Bud Light, Oracle, HP and many more.

Under the creative and project direction of Dan, Creative Works has travelled the world delivering a wide range of projects including the live show content for the Guns N’ Roses Not In This Lifetime Reunion Tour from 2016 to present, the 2019 Netflix 6 Underground Red Carpet event in New York, numerous projects FOX Sports including the 2020 Miami SBLIV Broadcast Set Content Package and 2014-2018 FOX Sports NFL Broadcast Graphic Package, Tottenham Hotspur’s 2018 stadium content package concept, Amazon Prime’s Premier League Broadcast set design in 2019 among many more.

Graduating in 1997 from Croydon College with a BA Hons in Graphic Design, he combined his passion for design, his newly acquired education and the real-world experience gained from his several summers-worth of work experience at a Soho-based Interior Design firm (Torres Design Associates) to get his first break as a professional designer at a natural products company in Germany (La Florina) producing packaging designs for their products. Leaving that post in March 1998, and after a short stint as a Video Diary Cameraman for Carnival Cruise Lines, Dan got a job through his design connections in London at another Interior Design studio called Revolution where his design journey really took off.

In 2000 he moved to a Holborn-based creative studio called Start Design as a middle-weight designer getting the opportunity to work on many projects for Richard Branson’s Virgin Empire including V-Shop, Virgin Atlantic Upperclass Suite Microsite and Virgin Mobile Homepage Animations. Over the decade he became a central member of the core design team working across hundreds of Branding projects from 2000-2011 for a wide range of clients including Virgin Media, adidas, Barclays, Virgin Atlantic, Schroders and Hertz. Seeing the company through several name-changes and personal in-house career changes, Dan left Start Judge Gill in 2011 as Head Of Motion Graphics in search of new challenges, which culminated in the co-founding of Creative Works in 2013.

Dan says “The education I received at Croydon College gave me a solid foundation in the theory and practice of Graphic Design and also exposed me to the tools needed to get out into the industry and be useful. Under the educational leadership of Darryll Bravenboer and the experts who came into the college to guide us, I really got the sense that they were working hard to prepare us for the real world. I also remember experiencing a lot of firsts in my time at Croydon College; beginning to work with Photoshop 2, opening my first browser window to search the web, figuring out my dissertation, through to meeting friends that I’m still in contact with on a daily basis now.”

“I’ve never stopped learning, yet I feel with the benefit of hindsight, that the experiences and tools I gained from my time with those tutors taught me primarily the very important skill of how to learn how to learn. I also left that BA Hons course with a level of competence that enabled me to continually adapt to the shifting landscape of the creative industries; I’ve worked in everything from print to motion graphics, web design to live events, social media to broadcast. And from the early beginnings of developing the skills to lay out type and communicate ideas visuals, create animation to writing coding, develop compelling storytelling or detailed project planning, song composition and sound design, motion graphics and 3D modelling, directing and leading other designers to deliver projects that are different and have stand out… all these skills were born out of the desire to create ‘good work to get good work’, and that discipline was definitely fostered during my degree course.”

“Coming to Croydon College allowed me to follow my dream – and for that dream to come true.”

John attended the College in 1974 and his time and training at the College marked the start of what has been, and still is, a fabulous career in fashion and design.