Elena Soboleva

My current job is as a Transport Planner with Mott MacDonald in London. The role includes preparation of Transport Assessments, Travel Plans, Construction Logistic Plans and Delivery and Servicing strategies. Besides transport planning tasks, I prepare junction models and have a deep expertise in crowd modelling (Legion Software). 

ITS gave me sufficient practical background to feel confident at the early stage of my career. One of the most useful modules was Transport Integrated Project, which gave me a real taste of the industry.

ITS is an industry leading educational organisation. It has a good reputation and I have a few friends who graduated from ITS before I obtained the degree. They gave me really good feedback and I was feeling confident about my choice. 

My advice to students interested in this course and a career in transport is to try to understand what the main purpose of the course is and what specific topic are you particularly interested in. For instance, it can be Active Travel, or Strategic Modelling. ITS has resources to provide knowledge in any of these fields. The earlier you can identify your preferences, the better. 

The ITS employer days was a highly useful experience as it offered good contacts in the industry and a really big chance to receive a job offer before graduation. I was also attending a few mock interviews in Leeds Career Centre, which was really helpful.

My advice to international students is start sending your CV out as early as possible. We started studying in September, in October I started sending my CV to companies of interest. It gave me a plenty of time to understand how hiring process works in the UK.

The highlight of my career so far is discovering Empathy and the art of communication creates work place synergy.