{"id":4708,"date":"2020-08-17T08:35:32","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T08:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/?p=4708"},"modified":"2024-04-11T08:08:23","modified_gmt":"2024-04-11T08:08:23","slug":"examined-life-dino-willox-ba-1996-ma-1999-phd-2003","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/2020\/08\/17\/examined-life-dino-willox-ba-1996-ma-1999-phd-2003\/","title":{"rendered":"Examined Life \u2013 Dino Willox (BA 1996, MA 1999, PhD 2003)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Dino Willox is director for student employability at the University of Queensland and has held several roles at Cardiff University including Head of Student Records and Assistant Registrar. Dino was also a Cardiff University student three times over and has always championed diversity and inclusion in Higher Education. Here, they reflect on their career, reminisce about Cardiff, and offer some valuable insight. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My earliest memories are of Hong Kong, where I lived until I was 5\nyears old<\/strong>, and travelling between there and the UK. This experience of\nphysical displacement definitely impacted my concept of home and sense of self,\nand certainly my appreciation for humid warm weather! It meant that I was keen\nto explore new places and gave me a sense of wanderlust. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were a few reasons why I chose Cardiff University<\/strong>. For my undergraduate study, Cardiff had a great reputation for philosophy and was also one of the few universities in the Good University Guide that specifically mentioned a thriving queer scene! Obviously, my decision making at this point in my life was all about balance\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I loved Cardiff University, both as a student and a staff member.<\/strong> I still have the University flag next to my desk at work. It was at Cardiff that I was taught to have humility and a willingness to try something,<\/strong> even if it doesn\u2019t quite work out how you expect. That, and critical thought. I think everyone should study philosophy for a whole range of reasons, but especially to think about things critically and creatively from all perspectives. Special mention needs to go to Professor Alessandra Tanesini<\/a>, who was my PhD supervisor and managed to get blood out of a stone! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Cardiff, I realised I had the power to positively influence change. <\/strong>Not only through my work, but also through the things that I\u2019m passionate about. I was proud to have helped Cardiff University become the first UK university to achieve Stonewall Diversity Champion<\/a> status, and to have been a founding member of the Enfys <\/a>network for LGBT+ network for staff and postgraduate students. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shout out to my good friend Karen Harvey-Cook<\/a>, who is still driving these initiatives and kicking goals on a daily basis!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe that career paths can only be traced retrospectively. <\/strong>When I look back, I can\nsee how I ended up being in the role I\u2019m currently in, but at the time I made\n\u2018career choices\u2019 based on where I physically wanted to live. I left Wales to\nmove to Scotland as I started a relationship with a Glaswegian and commuting between\ntwo countries was expensive and tiring. We then moved to Brisbane because,\nhonestly, have you seen winter in Glasgow? It turns out that I am solar\npowered, so the Sunshine State was the place to be!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each of these moves saw me change my work focus within higher\neducation.<\/strong> From\nCardiff University, to Strathclyde Business School, to the University of\nQueensland. I continue to work in universities as I believe that education is\nthe best way to change the world, and to lift people out of poverty. And my extracurricular and volunteer experiences are the\nvalue that I bring to each new role, not just my qualifications and work experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a non-binary queer person, I\u2019ve always been acutely aware of the barriers that exist for those who are not in positions of power.<\/strong> I also know how valuable my lived experiences have been to develop my capabilities, understanding, abilities, and ways of thinking. Diversity is important for innovation \u2013 it\u2019s critical to have as many different minds, ideas, ways of being and thinking, if you really want to find creative solutions to wicked problems!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I am passionate about making sure that people from all sorts of\nhistories, cultures, and lived experiences can achieve their full potential\neducationally. <\/strong>This requires challenging assumptions and removing barriers,\nincluding elevating the importance of a holistic view of the educational\nexperience \u2013 valorising all aspects of life and experience as part of the\nlearning endeavour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My advice to recent graduates would be to<\/strong> realise the value in *all* of your experiences. <\/strong>Not just your qualifications or work experience, but all of your lived experiences. Recognise and unlock their value for yourself through self-reflection, then work out how best to articulate that to future employers (or team members if you set up your own business). You can do this by capturing case studies of what you have learnt \u2013 create an experience bank that you can build to show your authentic whole self (an unashamed reference to the Employ101x<\/a> Massive Open Online Course, which can show you how to do this).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Valorise\ncreativity, diversity, and seek out experiences that push you outside your\ncomfort zone. <\/strong>That\u2019s\nwhere learning happens. And listen to as many different voices and experiences\nas possible \u2013 that\u2019s where knowledge is. And don\u2019t expect anything to be\nperfect \u2013 it\u2019s the rough edges and messy spaces that are where innovation and\nexcitement live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dino was a Cardiff University student three times over and has always championed diversity and inclusion in Higher Education. Here, they reflect on their career, reminisce about Cardiff, and offer some valuable insight. ","protected":false},"author":1811,"featured_media":4713,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[199,39,163,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-stories","category-cardiff-connect","category-examined-life","category-news"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1811"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4708"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4810,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4708\/revisions\/4810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}