Economics graduate Vaska Atta-Darkua has won a place in the final of the national Graduate 100 awards.

The Graduate 100 is the largest initiative of its kind in Britain and was developed in partnership with leading employers, universities and key industry figures to recognise outstanding students.

More than 13,000 graduates from over 70 universities entered the awards with only ten finalists picked out for each of the 10 categories covered by the awards.

Vaska graduated in International Economics this summer and was nominated by her Head of Department. She is a finalist in the Business and Economics category and judges were impressed by her outstanding academic record, her enthusiasm for getting involved in extra-curricular activities and her impact in the work placements she undertook while studying.

Vaska said: ‘I have taken full advantage of the opportunities that university life presents and have benefited enormously from my degree both professionally and personally.’

This year she won the Department of Economics special prize for exceptional academic achievement and the McGraw-Hill prize for the best final year performance in an economics degree.

Alongside her studies she has been heavily involved in extra-curricular activities. She was on the editorial board of the Essex Economics Students’ Journal and participated in her department’s mentoring and tutoring schemes.

She was also vice-president of the Judo Club and the Bright Futures Society and project manager for the Entrepreneurship Society. She even found time to join the dance society and perform the traditional Indian classical dance form of kathak in a show.

She has undertaken many diverse work placements including an internship with the Government Economic Services where she analysed how taxes and benefits affect income inequality in different European countries.

Within this role she worked with her supervisor to present a paper on Income and Living Conditions in Warsaw, Poland to the 2010 International Conference on Comparative EU Statistics.

She has now joined London-based econometrics marketing consultancy Ohal.

The winners of the Graduate 100 awards will be announced on Wednesday 15 September.