This week HCX Careers are looking at one of our own alumni as our career woman. She is of course, none other than, JK Rowling. Living in Exeter you cannot help notice the places that inspired her novels, such as Gandy Street.
Background: JK Rowling was born in Gloucestershire in 1965. In 1982 she attented the University of Exeter reading French and Classics. After graduating she worked for Amnesty International in London.
Why she is a HCX career woman: Rowling was a single mother living on social security when she published the first Harry Potter book. Since then it has sold an estimated 450 million copies, with Rollings personal wealth thought to be around £560 million. Since then she has become a philanthropist and is President of the Gingerbread Charity for single parent families as well as her own charity, the Volant Charitable Trust for Multiple Sclerosis and fighting poverty. In 2000 she was given an OBE by the Queen for her services to children’s Literature.
So it’s not just the English Literature students who could be following in her footsteps and becoming multimillionaires, we all can dream!
image credits: http://img.gawkerassets.com, hpotterfacts.tumblr.com