Airlie Beveridge

Abertay was really important to me. I didn’t actually want to go to university at first, I just wanted to go into the world of work. I was a coach with a sports development team in Perth before I came here. They pushed me to come to Abertay. I spoke to Andrea Cameron (the Dean of the Faculty of Social and Applied Sciences) and honestly, you have one conversation with her and you’re convinced about higher education. She’s just amazing. I loved my time here, it was incredible.

At the moment, I’ve two roles. I run the sport injury clinic at Abertay, and I also work with the local ice hockey team, Dundee Stars. I mostly work with sport injuries, but I also deal with general aches and pains. The kind of thing you can get from sitting at a desk or driving long distances.

In my fourth year I was volunteering with the teams and going to matches to work with their injuries. I spoke to the Sports Development Officer at Abertay, Mikey Devlin, to see if there was anything I could do in a wider role. I told him I’d really like to be based here and he helped open doors for me.

I’m work with the Dundee Starts Ice Hockey Team pretty much every day of the week treating injuries and training them. We do lots of strength and conditioning work. Off the ice though, because I don’t skate! They’re full time athletes so you have to be on the ball and make sure you do everything you can to get them ready for their matches. Ice hockey players have three or four fixtures a week, so they need to stay fresh and as injury free as possible.

I’d like to take what I’ve done at Abertay to see what could be done at other universities. Abertay is obviously my main focus. One quarter of the university is involved with sport, and that’s massive. It’s an exciting place to be a part of, it’s growing and growing. I’d love to stay a part of that if I can.

View the BSc (Hons) Sport and Exercise course