>>Andrew Goldsmith, School of Sport and Exercise Sciences’ graduate 
>>I'm Andrew Goldsmith, I studied Sports Therapy at Kent University and I now run my own clinic, Gold Standard Sports Therapy in Kent. 
>>So the things that stood out for me was the facilities, there were really good facilities there, that were enabling you to learn more, so with the testing kits they had, the rooms, the labs they had. Also, the staff seemed really knowledgeable, people that I was inspired by when I came to the Open Day, they stuck in my mind and I thought, I really want to learn from these people. 
>>So it is quite a close community there, the campus is all close together so you get a lot of contact time with all the different academics. It is really good in that aspect, you are not far away from anywhere, you can pop to the library, pop to see your tutor and it is a two-minute walk so everything is where it needs to be. 
>>Kent prepared me really well for after graduation, there were lots of different specifics. Mainly the content of the course were really specific, so learning your mobilisation, learning all your physical skills was really good, doing it over and over again until you got it right. And all the examinations were really on point, so you are really feeling the pressure to do well, so you are practising, practising, practising, so you know you are going to be good after, when you leave. So I am really confident in myself in my physical abilities as a therapist. 
>>Also, in terms of the placements and stuff they put you on, you learn a lot of different communication, you are networking, you are meeting new people, people in different industries so physiotherapists, osteopaths, so you are meeting all these different people and you are learning from them as well, so that communication, that networking is really good and Kent really helps support you in that area. 
>>There was a lot of different options for everybody in terms of placements. People worked with football clubs, rugby clubs. There was different clinics people went to as well. I opted to go for a rugby club, it was something that I have always been into football, so I wanted to put myself in an area which I wasn't very comfortable in and they were very good at facilitating that, they helped me get in contact with different clubs, making sure that I got into the right one for myself and yeah it worked really well. So, at that placement, that's where I learnt to build my confidence up as a therapist, working in situations which I wasn't necessarily comfortable in and that is what I feel is necessary for you to become successful as a therapist you need to put yourself in situations where you are not comfortable with, and you need to learn those things. So yeah Kent really helped support me in that area. 
>>So it was really good working with the rugby club, they were a good level and I learnt a lot at that placement and you are constantly doing stuff for your portfolio work and getting signed off by physios who work there and stuff, so that was really good in terms of your continuing development. 
>>The Sports Ready Clinic, which was a clinic run by the University, which was a really good option for students if they didn't have the time to necessarily go out, but it was a really good opportunity to work within a clinic space as well because you learn how to run a clinic, you learn how that day to day management of a clinic works, which is really important for myself as well. Running a clinic now, that experience was vital for me going forwards.