Christina PotterBack to Dundee Ambassadors

Attracting around 23,000 students every year and employing over 900 staff, Dundee College is very much at the heart of the city. Christina Potter, Principal and Chief Executive, has been at the helm for around three years. Originally from Newscastle, but brought up in Scotland and a resident of Fife, she  is still discovering many new parts of the city. Never the less she has been overwhelmed by just how quickly Dundee is developing.

Dundee is a creative, intelligent and future focused city, where you will find a warm welcome and a canny sense of humour. The city has changed tremendously since I first visited way back in the 1970's - I think it's got a real buzz to it. Perhaps this has been caused by a combination of the student population mixing with the creative and digital industries, and the life sciences. I think we have such a vibrant city which hasn't lost any of its character from the past.

Dundee for me is Dundee College. It's my work, it's my passion. Dundee College does exaclty what it says on the tin. It's a college, it's in Dundee, and everyone who wants to go to college in Dundee comes here. We're a significant employer in the city, with many of the staff travelling from across the Tay and from Perth. Working with Dundee City Council and other businesses, we feel very much at the heart of the community.

We have numerous international partners and attract a significant number of international students to Dundee. So we have to sell the city to people who have no experience of Scotland, never mind Dundee. When they come here, they really love the city because it's small enough to be friendly, but it's large enough to offer all the amenities they want; and it's actually quite an economical place to live. From a student piont of view Dundee is one of the cheapest cities to live in.

I think people really like that within five minutes they can be out in the countryside. You've got fantastic views over the Tay and it's quite often sunny here. Dundee has got a lot of selling points.

I think Dundee could be a bit more ambitous. I think people born and bred in Dundee are very happy and content with the city, but they're not going out and bragging about it. They should be because it's a fantastic city.

Opportunities like the V&A and advances in lifesciences, education and business are really exciting. The V&A in particular is a real coup, which will attract a lot of interest and may very well attract other organisations to the city.

I think the future's really bright for Dundee. There's a unique mix of intelligence, culture and creativity, driving the city forward, which means that it has the opportunity to continue to attract new businesses.

I think there's real opportunity in Dundee, down at the docks for example. I think if we could attract business to manufacture wave and off-shore power there, that could be really exciting for the city, and there is certainly the population here that could take up any jobs. What we would have to do here at the college is make sure we can give people the skills to be useful in those jobs.

I think Dundonians should be very proud of their heritage. They should be proud of the warm welcome they give to people, whether they're from the south of the border coming to work here, whether it's an influx of students coming to study here, whether it's people coming from abroad to join families here.

They should also be proud of its sense of humour. I don't know whether that's inspired by the heritage of DC Thomson comics and the comic characters, but there's something quite humerous about the city, and the people who live here.