How I got to University
By Olanoo

"Hello ugly, you're going to University" those were the first words my mother said to me after I was born! My mom is an American and moved to England when she married, with the aim of raising a family in a place where she believed her children would have better opportunities than she ever had. Her education had been that of the typical American high school sort you see in films.  Although she graduated high school and started a course at The School of Visual Arts in New York city she was unable to finish it due to a lack of financial support. Education has always been important to her, hence since I was born going on to higher education had always been part of the plan, so inevitably this is what happened when I grew up.

Coming from a family where I am the only one without a disability (unless being ginger counts) and was the full time carer for my mom in my later school years had meant that I had been tempted to go to a university close to home. However, when I went to visit a friend studying at Royal Holloway I knew it was where I wanted to go and with my mom’s encouragement it was the only place I accepted after my UCAS offers came back.

 I studied psychology for my undergraduate degree simply because I had been good at the subject at A level and knew it was something I enjoyed. Whilst a university education was what I wanted more than anything nothing had prepared me for what life at university was actually going to be like. Moving from the Isle of Wight to the ‘Mainland’ was daunting enough so I’d not even thought about what it would be like to actually live and exist at university and at the time I could not have dreamt of the friendships I’d make whilst being there.

Whilst studying psychology I discovered that there was actually a fair amount of the course that I wasn’t really that interested or excited by. Whilst I did enjoy the course on the whole it was clear to me by third year that there were areas of Psych’ that I just didn’t get on with and so when I was able to choose my courses I focused mainly on the neurological and clinical areas as opposed to social and developmental. Just to mix my timetable up a bit that year (and avoid any psychology I really didn’t want to do) I elected to take two media units in film studies which I thoroughly enjoyed and seemed to be alright at. My enjoyment was helped also by the small class sizes we had for the seminars in Media, something that was lacking in the psychology department with classes ranging from 70 to 180 students!

I graduated this year with a 2.1 and in the summer gain a place and received a scholarship from Royal Holloway to study for a MSc in Human Neuroscience which is what I am doing right now. I am still unsure of my exact direction in the future, however staying on to do a PhD is a strong possibility.

The past three years have been the best of my life, and I know many people say that about university but I truly believe that if I’d never gone and instead stayed on the Island or even gone somewhere like Southampton or Portsmouth to stay close to my mom, that I would be stuck on that Little Rock for the best part of my life. Retrospectively, my going away also improved my mom’s health by making her more independent and less reliant on my care (although there was one moment in my second year when she was hospitalised and it did affect my degree slightly). I was never so far away that I couldn’t get home in a few hours if when rarely it was needed but I also wasn’t close enough just to pop back whenever I wanted which was probably best for me.

My education has always been the main reason for me to go to University, and although I have learnt so much from the exceptional education from Holloway, I have also had so many experiences outside of this that I could not have had if I’d stayed home. Some of my fondest memories of this sort would be meeting Prince Harry at a nightclub in Windsor! Going to numerous shows, musicals and comedy gigs in London with the friends I made here. Not to mention having the opportunity to interview the comedian Tim Minchin for my university newspaper! By visiting the homes of friends I made whilst studying I broadened my horizons. I’ve been able to discover parts of this larger Island we call England and I’ve even been over to Jersey a couple of times! None of these amazing things would have happened to me had I not gone to Holloway. In the past three years I have learnt how to be me. I did not had a further education by coming to University, I had a re-education. 

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