Clara Amfo has been promoted so many times in the past couple of years, you have to wonder whether she’s got something on her bosses. She’s gone from marketing intern at Kiss FM to hosting her own show on the station, to weekend mornings on BBC 1Xtra, to the presenter of the UK Top 40 on Radio 1. She was in that prestigious role for just five months before being bumped up again to her current job, replacing Fearne Cotton as the host of the station’s morning show and the Live Lounge. Alongside all that she’s had presenting stints on BBC Three and is a formidable club DJ.
But a few years ago she was in the same position as thousands of students this week, timidly attempting to navigate her university freshers’ week. She went to St Mary’s College in South London, where freshers’ week can get “really loud and raucous” with the small campus overrun with flyers, clubs and events.
Amfo’s freshers’ experience was atypical, with her university just a bus ride away from her parents’ home, where she still lived. She didn’t go through the emancipatory rush of quad-vods and bad sex that has come to signify the start of student life.
“I just wasn’t that up for shacking up in student digs with three strangers. I thought I’d save some money and stay at home. That meant that I’d still hang out with my old mates from my area mostly. In freshers’ week the student union posters would always be like ‘Tuesday’s Pop night, hear the latest flavours,’ with flavours spelt f-l-a-v-a-s and then there was rock night on Friday, but I just didn’t get deeply into ‘let’s all go down the SU and drink snakebite’ vibe.”
St Mary’s was only granted full university status last year – while Amfo was there it was still part of the University Of Surrey, a modernising arm with a heavy emphasis on sport and media. Amfo’s course was not the sort of thing your parents would have studied.
“It was called media arts with professional and creative writing. I know it sounds wishy washy but it was discussing film theory with our lecturers and the politics around media or radio production, which were all so interesting and relevant to what I wanted to do. One of my modules was about fan groups and the cult of being a fan – I had to go to a Doctor Who convention as part of my coursework because I studied the Whovians.”
Like a lot of students at newer universities, Amfo found she had a lot of interaction with people who’d had practical experience in their field. As well as experts in American cinema and goth culture, she was taught by veteran broadcasters. “It was quite motivating being taught by people who had legit experience in the industries we were all interested in. It definitely made me a bit more focused and think I could attempt to make a career out of it.”
Amfo has since had plenty of radio training in the workplace, but she learned “basic radio 101” while still at university. She had to make two radio documentaries in her final year, about Black History Month and parental drug abuse. “Doing that, I learned stuff that is obvious but so useful to know, like always getting your subject to ask the question within the answer. My mind was blown! Me asking you what’s your name and where do you come from and you saying ‘Sam, north London”. What can I do with that? ‘Hello my name’s Sam and I’m from north London,’ that’s radio gold.”
While she’s positive about the impact uni had on her career, she admits that no employer has ever asked to see her degree. She got the job at Kiss FM after an informal chat, and when the BBC poached her a few years later, they weren’t bothered about how she did at uni (a 2:1 if you’re asking). Most people in music radio either didn’t go to university, or did a course that didn’t especially relate to their field. So would she go as far as to recommend the university experience to someone else trying to be a DJ?
“I’ve always been very honest with people. I say go if you want to, because there’s no harm in it. But I always tell people that you should stay active in your passion as well as studying. So if you want to be a radio presenter, make sure you are always broadcasting in a sense. If your uni hasn’t got a radio station, make sure you’re involved in hospital radio or you’re making your own podcasts.”
Amfo admits that she didn’t actually do that much student radio herself, preferring to write for the university newspaper for a bit. “I did the music reviews and I remember being really proud because I’d gone to see NERD and by some divine intervention I managed to blag it into the photographer’s pit. My brothers couldn’t believe it, we used to listen to that album all the time.”
Of course, the way things panned out, it wasn’t the last time Amfo came face to face with Pharrell. “Yeah, it was a nice full circle moment because I interviewed him at Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Glasgow last year.” She giggles and puts on a cheesy radio voice. “So from going to the gig for my student uni paper to getting to interview him is a cute full circle moment. In the words of Des’ree, ‘life oh life’.”
Keep up with the latest on Guardian Students: follow us on Twitter at @GdnStudents – and become a member to receive exclusive benefits and our weekly newsletter.
