From UNNC to Pfizer: Xudong Ye's journey to success

Xudong Ye is a graduate of Environmental Engineering in 2019. After getting a master's degree at UCL, he ranked among the top 20 candidates from more than 5000 graduate applicants and became a Management Trainee at Pfizer.

 He joined the company more than a year ago, and the work there is challenging indeed. He has not only helped the new department draft a business plan, but has also held several different positions covering for new colleagues before they joined the team. When he reported their plan to the headquarters, the business plan was not approved until the fourth-round of modifications which were needed to meet all the requirements and needs of various departments in the company.

Although Pfizer is an American multinational pharmaceutical corporation and entered the Chinese market back in the 1980's, they have only just established a retail team in China. Therefore, For Xudong, it is more like working in an entrepreneurial company. He must work with his colleagues in order to build many early stage systems while teams are established, such as market strategy and business standard processes. "Every day I learn new knowledge and skills and I grow very fast in. It is like the examination season when I was in the university. One time during my studies, I wrote a 6000-word lab report in one night. I think my self-learning skills and concentration were honed during my study at UNNC.”

Looking back to his undergraduate learning experience, he believes that what he learned far more from the environmental engineering programme than just engineering knowledge. “More importantly, I also learned mathematics, mastered a variety of computer software, and inductive learning and systematic thinking, which boosts my future learning and career potential," said Xudong Ye. He also suggested that engineering graduates were more sought-after in top consultancies and financial companies.

Xudong's career path was not immediately clear. “When I graduated from UCL, I was confused.”  He was unsure of what to do first, so he submitted many job applications. He worked very late to prepare for interviews, but still got rejected. "Believe it or not, I appreciate this experience, which helped my understanding". He also encouraged students to not limit themselves in their enrolled programme, try new things and seize every opportunity. “Your passion and goals are the most important incentive of your life.”

Xudong also told us that he was a very ordinary graduate in his cohort. He is also keen to create values for society in the future, and said that he will keep working in the life and health industry. He was also happy to see that the University of Nottingham Ningbo China has researchers working on pharmaceutics and drug discovery and have established the Nottingham China Health Institute. “I hope to have the honour to cooperate with my teachers and alumni one day and make more contributions to the improvement of life and health in China.”

I hope to have the honour to cooperate with my teachers and alumni one day and make more contributions to the improvement of life and health in China.”