My tutors have supported me all the way. I did the UCAS application with the help of the personal tutor, and was offered places at Canterbury Christ Church University and University of Kent, depending on my grades. I passed all my exams. This course changed my whole life.
I’ve got ADHD which wasn’t diagnosed until I was 33. I was labelled as naughty at school. I didn’t do well academically and left school with nothing. I did any job I could get - cleaning jobs, fast food. But I was fed up. I did some dead-end jobs but even as a young mum, I was thinking to myself ‘I’m going to get myself a career, I’m going to prove I can do something for me.’
It has a massive impact on the whole family. It has influenced all the children and they are my biggest supporters. They’ll bring me tea when I’m studying. They want to read more because I’ve got three books on the go all the time. My 4-year-old is trying to read my sociology book! Studying completely opened my eyes to a whole new world.
At the start when they said I’d write a 2,000 word essay, I thought, ‘oh no I won’t’. Now I struggle to write less than 2,000 words. My first day in my classroom, I was crying ‘I do not belong here’, but I kept going. Now I’m the class geek. I just love it.
I’m so engrossed in the subjects, and so enjoying it, I don’t want to give any of them up and now plan to take social sciences.
It is tough, but I shut home out when I’m in College and then at home I’m mum. It seems to be getting easier. I like it all, the wakening to the world when you learn sociology. I used to avoid people I thought were more intelligent because thought I wasn’t their equal – but you learn how the mind develops, and it has changed my view on others.
