Ritchie Harley

Ritchie Harley was able to put many elements of his university learning into practice when he took on a placement in the States.

Third-year student Ritchie was in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was coaching cricket while being involved in meetings to discuss the ongoing development and growth of the cricket programme in the city.

“I was coaching kids from 5 to 18 who were all really quite talented in cricket,” said Ritchie, a Cricket Coaching and Management with Integrated Masters student.

“It’s a different culture in the States and that came with its challenges, but it came with a lot of positives as well because I emersed myself in a different environment.”

Ritchie was able to gain experience working with big groups and doing more tailored sessions to smaller groups.

“Sometimes it’d be a massive group, there could be 40 to 60 kids, and sometimes it was just 3 or 4 people and me coaching, so that mix gave me the chance to implement different activities that I’d explored, but not tried or tested or implemented before.”

While Ritchie’s time in the States was focussed mainly on his passion for cricket coaching, he was still able to immerse himself in his new surroundings.

“I’ve taken away a lot of memories from the travel aspect of it,” he said. “Being independent, being away from home for a sustained period of time and being around completely new people in a completely new environment.”

He added: “I can say, ‘yes, I’ve done that! I’ve experienced it’! That gives you the confidence to either go travelling again, or do something completely different. To be brave and go for anything.”