Alumni Stories – Shauna Ralph

This series of posts looks at what our former students do after they graduate in History at the University of Gloucestershire. It demonstrates the various types of employment and further study they can go into. It provides useful guides for existing students, but also highlights the fascinating journeys of our graduates. The next story comes from Shauna Ralph (Class of 2019), who talks about studying History at undergraduate and postgraduate level, starting a career in museums, and running her own history-based social media.

History at the University

When I started my undergraduate in history at the University of Gloucestershire in 2016, I had no idea that I’d end up staying there until 2022. Having loved history since I was in year three and fallen in love with the Ancient Egyptians, I fell further in love with it at university. I have some great memories from my time doing my undergraduate degree. Some of my favourites include the trip to the Tower of London and the archaeological dig arranged by David Howell during our project on the Battle of Tewkesbury.

It was my dissertation in third year, which focused on Henry VII and the pretenders to the throne, that became the catalyst to me staying for a postgraduate course. I found that I really enjoyed the research side of things, and it was this love for historical research that encouraged me to apply to do a Masters by Research at the University. By this point my interest for everything on Victorian Britain was really starting to take off and I knew that was the period I wanted to study further. Thanks to Vicky Randall, I narrowed down the focus and got to write about my favourite historical event – the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Starting a Career in a Museums & Beyond

While working on my thesis and working in retail in 2021, I became a Collections Volunteer with the Museum of Gloucester where I helped in their current project of decanting the Folk of Gloucester Museum. This helped to give me experience in handling, cleaning, and processing items of the collection. In December 2022 I then became a Visitor Experience Apprentice at the museum. I truly believe the experience and knowledge I was gaining while volunteering helped me gain my position there. It is almost impossible to get into the museum sector if you don’t have experience! Then, much to my joy, after a successful interview in 2023, I started a new position in October 2023 as Visitor Experience Assistant. This job has helped give me experience and knowledge in working in a museum setting, I regularly get to help out the Collections Team in handling and cleaning collection, as well as constantly learning more about Gloucester’s history.

Alongside my job I run a history blog called Shauna Does History. I started this in 2020 to document historical trips and my Masters degree. After dipping in and out of it over the last couple of years, I returned to it in May 2024 with weekly posts covering historical research, history trips, and book reviews along with the occasional aviation post. In September 2024 I was very kindly invited to the Gloucester History Festival where I jumped out of my comfort zone to interview amazing historians such as Janina Ramirez, Dan Jones and Nathen Amin, as well as getting some short clips with Philippa Langley, Matthew Lewis and Annie Garthwaite. History has and always will play a huge part in my life and I’m excited to see where 2025 takes me!