GREAT PEOPLE.

We have some amazing staff members at Shipley, Nathan is one of our Esports lecturers and has worked here since September. Before he started teaching Nathan was a pro Esports player and ranked in the top 100 in the world for FIFA. We asked Nathan about his role at the college and why he thinks it's a great place to work:

'I am one of the Esports lecturers here at the college. So far I have worked here since September and I am really enjoying it. It's a very nice place to work, I genuinely do believe in the phrase great people, great place. My main roles are teaching, planning, prepping lessons and delivering the course.

I have a degree in History and Politics. I left uni not really sure what I wanted to do, I worked as a teaching assistant in a private school for 3 years so I gained some experience in teaching and I had an offer to do my PGCE at Leeds Trinity University. Throughout all of this I had always enjoyed gaming and around this time FIFA introduced a ranked mode called foot champions. In the first month I came in the top 100 in the world. I decided to defer going to uni to giving becoming a pro a go. 

I went to my first pro tournament in Barcelona and around this time I signed for Futwiz. I was with them for 2 years. I had always been doing youtube videos and streaming on twitch after this I signed with Fnatic who had a partnership with Roma Football club. They’re the biggest Esport team in the UK and I signed with them as a coach and pro-player. After that I signed with Excel as a Fifa manager and I was working in London a lot. As part of my job I was travelling a lot, I’ve been to Singapore, the US and all over Europe. Eventually I left Excel, I wanted a more stable, long term career that would benefit my family life. I had always thought about teaching so to get into teaching Esports has brought my two passions together. Working at the college and lecturing fit around my life well.

I genuinely love Esports and I think it's great that I am able to teach the students something I am so passionate about. Something that I like about this course is that its getting rid of a lot of misconceptions about Esports, the students aren’t just sat around all day playing video games. We also teach them to be realistic in their expectations, not everyone is going to be a pro player but there are loads of different job roles with the industry, coaching, managers, analytics, shoutcasters.

In the future I want to bring in some of the industry experts I have worked with over my career to help give the students an insight into what a career in Esports is like. 

I enjoy working with Clark and Nicole, and working in FE is great. The students are a good bunch and it's nice seeing the students have a passion for my passion'.

Want to join our team of ‘Great People’? See all of our current Shipley College vacancies here.