Honorary Fellows: Madeleine Bunting

Madeleine Bunting is Associate Editor at The Guardian, author of three books and winner of multiple awards including the One World Trust award in 1999 and in 2006 she was awarded a fellowship on the Templeton Cambridge journalism programme to name only a few.

How does it feel coming to the Cardiff graduation?

I had no idea what to expect, it was very very moving. I was nervous until I got my speech done.

Do you have any advice or tips for graduates to help them in their future careers?

You have to be enormously adaptable. My motto is to always take whatever opportunities come up and to work as hard as you possibly can. I was reflecting as the students were coming up that it could be difficult for the next few years and they really just have to maintain that resilience and that resourcefulness and be quite imaginative and creative. Sometimes that conventional career route of secure jobs, long term prospects is not going to be very easy but then they are very creative people, they’ve got to be hardworking and creative. They can perhaps create opportunities themselves.

You have had lots of roles in your career; Reporter, author, columnist, editor, which was your favourite?

My problem is I have more than one favourite, I’m now working in strategic development so at the moment I’m not writing. But there’s part of me that’s itching to get back to writing a book because there’s nothing more  intellectually satisfying that wrestling with material to create a book. My difficulty is that there is too many things I like.

You have won many awards throughout your career, how does it feel receiving the honorary fellowship from Cardiff University?

It’s the most overwhelming. It’s an immense honour. It’s incredible recognition and I’m deeply grateful.