I graduated with a first and now I’ve got my dream job tasting chocolate

One jammy grad has landed the perfect job tasting chocolate for a living and is in charge of quality.

Food science student Madison House, 22, made it through uni with dyslexia and was only diagnosed in her third year.

And now she works as a quality technical assistant for a chocolate factory, which means she gets more than just a taster.

Madison said: “In a nutshell, I get to eat chocolate every day and get paid for it. Who can complain?”

The Abertay University graduate said: “My job is a dream – I work for a chocolate company in south Wales as a quality assistant, so it is my responsibility to ensure the products being produced maintain or exceed high quality standards.

Madison believed she was “stupid” all the way through school because of her dyslexia, which was only discovered recently.

She said: “I went through a really hard time in my third year, because I had gone through school, sixth form and almost all of university with undiagnosed dyslexia and dyscalculia.

“My dyslexia requires me to write everything down and to rewrite my notes so I accumulated a lot of extra work and it really wasn’t easy.

“I experienced a lot of stress and frustration but I was so convinced that I wasn’t good enough and that I just needed to work harder, so I did.

“I almost cried in one of my lectures because everybody else seemed to understand the work but me.

“I felt so embarrassed, so from then on I stopped asking questions.”

But Madison was able to overcome this and graduated with an impressive first class degree.

She doesn’t just have a sweet tooth and has always been into food, making her first meal  – a boiled egg – at age nine.

Madison said: “I chose my course because I live, breathe, think, dream and of course eat food.

“I also got to cook and eat food. I remember during my first year – whilst my flatmates tucked into their pot noodles – I was eating venison steak in red wine sauce.”

Before joining O.P Chocolate Ltd, Madison had a work placement at a bakery while at uni – which meant free cake testing too.

She said: “I was given a wonderful opportunity to go on a placement that lasted a whole semester.

“This was in a bakery where I pretty much ate cake everyday day.

“The company was a huge enterprise, employing hundreds of people and producing chilled desserts, celebration cakes, wedding cakes and cake bars.

“I was a student intern so I wasn’t given a specific job, but the quality and food safety aspect was what I enjoyed the most, and that’s what I now do in my current job, which basically involves eating chocolate every day – what a hard life.”