One of the most rewarding aspects of my development role is meeting with alumni in the UK and further afield and discovering what they have done since they left school. The results are often surprising and my conversation with Shona Lambert was more surprising than most!
While she was at Mary Erskine Shona was known and respected as an intelligent and ambitious girl who achieved excellent academic results and who also enjoyed a very successful career as a swimmer. Shona left Mary Erskine in 2012 and took up a sports scholarship at University of Maryland, Baltimore County in the USA, with Psychology and Biology as her main academic subjects. Her swimming reached a standard where she harboured realistic hopes of swimming at a high level and to that end she trained more than once with Katie Ledecky, a 5-time Olympic gold medal winner, during thanksgiving breaks. However, in the end Shona decided that her swimming ambition was probably not realistic and so, having graduated with an excellent degree, she began to look for posts which would allow her to utilise her love of swimming and the water as well as her excellent Psychology and Biology skills. Having loved all animals, and particularly dolphins, for as long as she can remember, she was delighted to be offered a post as a dolphin trainer in Abu Dhabi and jumped at the chance.
Confident and ambitious, and willing to take a chance by accepting this unusual opportunity, Shona was surprised to discover that her responsibility was to care for and train a personal collection at a private dolphinarium. Considering the influential guests visiting the dolphins, this was a very special appointment. Shona learned very quickly and proved to be a natural when it came to working with dolphins and a variety of animals, winning the admiration of everyone with whom she worked. After a year Shona decided to move on and, at the age of 23, has accepted an offer to lead a team of dolphin trainers at the incredible and huge Atlantis Hotel situated at the furthest point of the Palm Jumeirah in Dubai.
When I met with Shona she had only worked at the hotel for a couple of weeks but had already been singled out as a natural for future leadership opportunities at the hotel. However, she will not forget her time working in Abu Dhabi and, incredibly, she is in a WhatsApp group with the clients and was driving back to Abu Dhabi the evening after our meeting to share a carry out pizza with them!
The moral of this story is that the girls and boys who leave ESMS every year will live and work in a world in which the most amazing opportunities will present themselves. As long as they have the confidence and ambition to stretch themselves they can look forward to exciting professional lives although not necessarily as dolphin-trainers!
