After surviving cancer, I found my future at Cardiff – For Alumni, By Alumni

Ellie Philpotts (BA 2017) is a freelance journalist, content editor, and healthcare campaigner. Following a blood cancer diagnosis as a teenager, Ellie later studied at Cardiff and worked to support fellow members of the cancer community. It’s now been ten years since Ellie’s time as fresher. Here, she reflects on how Cardiff University helped her to build a career close to her heart.

When you move to uni, you’re keen for a fresh start and some element of reinvention. It may be far from your hometown, bringing chances to get to know a whole new set of people and figure out the direction you want to steer your future towards. But, especially at such a young age, you can’t forget your past and there’s not much point trying to.

Instead of launching some revolutionary identity shift, uni is a prime opportunity to build on your existing interests, both inside and outside the lecture theatre. You’d hope to find a supportive environment there, that facilitates this development while letting you stay true to your uniqueness. I definitely think that’s what Cardiff University, a forward-thinking establishment with the benefits of being set within a creative capital, did for me.

Ten years ago, in Autumn 2014, I set off across the border to Wales and found myself stationed on Cathays’ jugular Colum Road – as a base, at least! At 18, moving out for the first time, I couldn’t wait to get started on such a defining new adventure. What made it even more significant was that in 2011, I’d been diagnosed with the blood cancer Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

Although I was long in remission by the time I achieved my uni goal, cancer has a way of sticking around. However, I didn’t mind if anyone I met at uni knew about this. Many young cancer survivors will relate to not wanting cancer to consume their entire sense of self. But because teenage cancer survivors form a proportionally small cohort, yet one that’s sadly gaining more members each year, I’ve still felt a desire to stay part of this community and try to support others in similar situations where I can. When I was new to Cardiff, this desire stuck with me, and even now after another decade into good health, it’s stayed that way. It was Cardiff that really allowed me to work on this cancer cause that’s no longer literally close to my heart, but will always be a key part of me.

The first society that caught my eye at the Freshers’ Fair was Cardiff Marrow, a branch of the nationwide charity Anthony Nolan. This connects the public to blood cancer patients in desperate need of lifesaving stem cell donations. After swiftly joining as a volunteer, I was proud to stay with them for my whole degree and then some, through their alumni programme. Progressing to Media Coordinator, I worked with the small but mighty team to sign students to the stem cell register, hosting ‘give a spit’ events across the city and spreading the word about the cruciality of donations.

This gave me the confidence to join many more cancer-related groups, including the Oncology Society. Meanwhile, as a Journalism student and inevitable contributor to student media, stories shining a spotlight on local healthcare campaigns regularly found their way into my early portfolio.

Cardiff made it easier to be many things – a cancer survivor keen to try to give back, an enthusiastic aspiring journalist, and a charity activist. I remember Cardiff achieving this by fusing the student experience with the wider city. Compared to many capitals, it’s fairly small and compact, but brimming with friendliness, culture, and opportunities even on unassuming-looking corners. So I really felt that each arm of its welcoming attitude extended well beyond the university bubble that can seem tempting to stay within.

Cardiff Uni’s cancer-related events weren’t confined to typical student territories, but I also tried to connect with local projects unaffiliated to the university. Thanks to the uni’s bustling societies scene, aiming further out, both literally and metaphorically, was so much more effortless to initiate and maintain. And when I wasn’t campaigning for the cancer cause, I was taking on non-academic writing assignments, such as being Food Editor at Quench. This role didn’t take long to teach me that Cardiff didn’t just have a passionate cancer survivor community – but was also amazing for the aptly-initialled duo of creativity and cuisine!

I would have been very happy to keep living in Cardiff, but a few months after graduating in 2017, I achieved another dream of moving to another vibrant capital – perhaps more predictably, London! I stayed there until just a few months ago, when exactly a decade after first moving out to Cardiff, I was on the move again and set for Brighton. Both then and now are marked with a love of writing and a desire to demystify more of the oncology world through words, and I thank Cardiff for establishing a strong foundation that’s guided me through my career so far.

I’ve spent most of my working life as a health journalist, now splitting my week between editing for the Royal College of Nursing and reporting, writing, and doing cancer-related projects as a freelancer. With aspirations to complete a book based around my cancer experiences and supporting other young patients before I’m 30, I find myself fondly remembering starting it all in a city that equipped me with the knowledge that cancer collaboration goes a long way. I left with more ambitions, lessons, and happy memories than I would have predicted as a young patient trying to look ahead to a future beyond the Teenage Cancer Trust wards.

You can find Ellie on X at @eleanor__p and on LinkedIn here.

‘For Alumni, By Alumni’ is our blog series shining a spotlight on the stories you want to tell your peers. Perhaps you’re involved in an amazing community project or your work is innovating and solving problems? Submit your idea.