Leah opts for a life on the ocean waves

The UCLan Sports Studies course provides graduates with a wide range of skills to enhance their future employability.

Careers in sport and teaching are the most popular choices for those who successfully complete the programme, but its diverse nature can also lead students into other areas such as tourism or the outdoors.

Leah Bradbury is a great example of this, securing a role as a Retail Assistant on board the Cunard cruise liner MS Queen Victoria.

She said: "I picked the Sports Studies degree to learn about a wide range of topics surrounding the subject, such as history and politics as well as enterprise.

"The course has given me the platform to gain experience in different career paths in order to make an informed decision about my future.

"My time at UCLan has been a mix of emotions. I've met friends for life but also had to know when to knuckle down. I know that both my experience and my degree played a huge part in me gaining my new job."

Graduates start new company

UCLan Sports Studies duo Carlton Evans and Luke Daniels are using the knowledge and experience gained on our programme to set up their own business.

Supported by Challenger Sports, Carlton and Luke will launch TinyTykes Preston in March 2016.

The scheme, created by childcare specialists, introduces children aged 18 months - 5 years to the basic skills of soccer.

Luke (far left) said the diverse nature of the Sports Studies course had been a big help in mapping out the path they wanted to choose.

"The course is very well run, with all the tutors and staff extremely helpful across the whole three years," he said.

"The modules are set out in a way that give you many different routes in sport, which sets you up for third year when you eventually have to choose one. I accumulated over 250 hours of coaching experience over my final two years, which has provided a perfect platform to start this business."

Luke and Carlton also enjoyed international experiences during their time on the course, working as Team Leaders on this year's UCLanSport for Development Project in Zambia.

They led two groups of second year students to an area with a high poverty rate in an attempt to deliver life lessons about HIV/AIDS and gender equality through the medium of sport.

The pair, who graduate later this month, will keep close ties to UCLan by offering coaching opportunities to undergraduates and utilising the expertise available at the university.

Triple election joy for sporting expert

Professor John Horne has been elected to positions of responsibility within three major international and national scholarly associations.

Professor Horne has joined the Nominations Committee of the Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS), become Vice Chair of the British Sociological Association (BSA) and from January 2016 will take up the role of Vice President and Treasurer of the International Sociology of Sport Association (ISSA).

The AcSS is the national academy of academics, learned societies and practitioners in the social sciences.

The Academy is made up of around 1000 individual Fellows, 43 Learned Societies and a number of affiliate members, together representing nearly 90,000 social scientists.

Founded in 1951, the BSA is the national subject association for sociologists in the UK and its primary objective is to promote sociology. Members of the Association are drawn from a wide range of backgrounds and include researchers, teachers, students and practitioners in a variety of fields.

The Association represents UK sociology on key bodies both nationally and internationally, working closely with allied organizations to influence policies affecting sociology within the wider social sciences remit.

Through its publications, research groups and busy calendar of events, the BSA provides a network of communication to enable the promotion and use of sociology and sociological research.

The ISSA is a research committee of the International Sociological Association (ISA) where it is officially recognized as RC27 (Sociology of Sport) and also an official committee of the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education (ICSSPE).

ISSA holds annual conferences, including congresses in conjunction with the World Congress of Sociology and the Pre-Olympic Scientific Congress, and publishes the International Review for the Sociology of Sport (IRSS).

Professor Horne's expertise has been in much demand throughout 2015, joining panel discussions at Leeds Beckett and Bournemouth Universities, and following up his recent research into sports mega-events by co-editing a collection of articles with Professor Richard Gruneau from Simon Fraser University, Vancouver.

Entitled 'Mega-Events and Globalization: Capital and Spectacle in a Changing World Order', the collection will be published by Routledge later this year.

He has also received an invitation to take part at an international workshop, 'More than just a game: mobilities, infrastructures & imaginaries of global sports events', to be hosted by the University of Antwerp, Belgium, in October 2015.