The cupcake chemist

Building a business

Sarah registered as self-employed and built a website, and soon the orders were coming in thick and fast. She initially ran the business around her admin work, and while on maternity leave with her first child, but when she had her second child she took voluntary redundancy to focus on her cake business, Cupcake Crumbs, full time. 

“I had two children under two and I didn’t really want to be going out somewhere 9–5 when I had something I could do from home and work around my family. I do want to do something different now but it’s been a really good way of working for me for the last few years. During this time, I also became a single parent and flexible working made that transition much smoother too.”

Sarah is completely self-taught in both her baking skills and business acumen. She designed and built her company’s first website and does all of her own accounts.

“I did sign up for a class and went for a few weeks but it was a bit like they’d designed this cake decorating course in the 60s and hadn’t updated it. It was a lot of stuff I just wasn’t interested in and was never going to use so I stuck with looking online and just having a go. I found the business side quite interesting; it was something new to do and something else to teach myself.”

Old dreams, new start

Sarah’s appetite for learning has now led her to revisit her previous ambitions of studying chemistry.

“I’d been saying for a while that once both my children were at school full time, I should really do something a bit more – maybe open a shop, or take the business in a different direction.

Ever since I left school, I’ve always wondered what it would have been like if I’d gone and read chemistry when I was 18.

It’s always been that lingering thought in the back of my mind. I almost tried to convince myself that it’s too late to go back. But I thought I should take this opportunity now before it really is too late. I’m still working part time, which also feels like a great safety net. Once I really thought about it, it just seemed like a no-brainer.”

Sarah spent a year re-taking AS-levels in chemistry and biology to refresh her knowledge and strengthen her UCAS application to universities in Leeds, Bradford, York and Huddersfield. She got the A grades needed for her place at Leeds University and started the course there full time in September 2017.

“It’s very different – I used to just work at home, and now, five days a week, I’m getting up and I’m going out somewhere. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that and it’s been good for me.

“It’s great to hear people talk about things that I’ve just been reading about. People who are obviously so knowledgeable in their area and can explain things with such ease. Getting into a lab for the first time properly and having two to three hour sessions, doing real chemistry, was brilliant.”

Fitting in

Sarah’s initial concerns about not fitting in as a mature student have long faded, and she encourages others thinking of starting a degree later in life to just go for it.

“It was nowhere near as scary as I thought it was going to be. I was expecting to feel like I was different from everybody else. I think there’s one other mature student out of a group of about 200 of us, so I am much older than almost everybody, but it doesn’t feel like a gap that needs to be bridged, that’s just how it is.

“I’m actually quite grateful that at least I don’t have all the massive life changes going on like everybody else there does. I’m not moving away from home for the first time and getting to grips with managing myself. I’m pretty organised; my tutorial group has a WhatsApp group and a few times already people have put messages on saying ‘oh Sarah, you’ll know this, what room is this in?’ Already having lots going on means I’m used to ensuring everything gets done on time and I always know where I need to be.” 

As well as throwing herself into the academic side of university life, Sarah has already joined the school of chemistry’s committee for Athena SWAN: an award that recognises work undertaken by organisations to address gender equality in their workplace and practices. “It’s something I feel quite strongly about and was something that I actively looked to get involved with once I started here. I’m interested in LGBT+ representation and women’s representation – the sciences seem to be one of the areas where, in both of those aspects, there’s not been quite as much progress made as in other disciplines.”

Inspiring the next generation

Sarah has also enjoyed passing on her love of chemistry to her kids and has tried out lots of home experiments with them.

“My daughter is especially keen, she wants to do science all the time at home. She loves it. She has a ‘my first chemistry kit’, which we’ve used for the bicarb and vinegar volcano and other included experiments, but her favourite was the pH indicator we made from red cabbage. It’s nice to be able to pass on that enthusiasm and joy for science and learning.”