Winchester taught Alfie to look
at the bigger picture beyond exams,
the wider journey he’s setting
out on.
his options carefully. One possibility following
graduation is to work with design consultancies
for a few years, and once he has gained enough
experience of the industry set up his own company
– a Dyson-to-be. A few years’ experience would
give him more insight into which avenue to hone
in on: his skills could potentially be used in films,
video games and many other fields, including
public health.
This is all enviable ambition in someone so
young, but he’s also keeping an open mind – his
experiences at Winchester and since have also led
to him considering a surprising long-term career
possibility: teaching. This might change, he says,
but it comes from his recognition of his love of
working with others to learn new skills. ‘Teachers,
if they’re proactive, learn as much as they teach.’
Like many others, Archie credits Winchester,
and especially Div, with teaching him intellectual
curiosity, but he also notes that it fosters humility:
the idea that there is always more to learn, and
that you should never rest on your laurels. He
also remembers the passion many dons had for
their subjects. ‘Passion is contagious,’ he notes.
Perhaps most importantly, he says Winchester
taught him to look at the bigger picture: beyond
exams, the wider journey you’re setting out on.
He says it fed in him an insatiable curiosity, and
allowed him to start thinking about topics that
would otherwise have passed him by at that age.
Beyond his obvious talents in his field, perhaps it’s
this combination of curiosity and passion that has
brought Alfie to where he is today. Now familiar
with the tutor who interviewed him for his degree
place, he knows that it wasn’t so much his maths or
science skills that saw him accepted on the course,
but his attitude. ‘Nothing was going to stop me any
more,’ he says.
.
Top: Operating the Milling Machine in the Ace Workshop
Above: Prototype of the multi-purpose blender, known as
KAIT (kitchen artificial intelligence tool)
The Wykeham Journal 2018 37