Making the leap to study at university

Leeds Poly was basically my last hope to move forward in the subject and career I wanted. I did not excel at my very academic school and many university applications did not work out for me. The idea of speech therapy and polytechnic study was not in the scope of interest for my school careers teacher, and so I had to go it alone with applications. 

I did know in myself that this had to happen before I went away, but I think it would have been good to have understood more clearly that higher education offers that time to really shift, experiment and develop. So when it came to making my decisions, I already found I had connections with Leeds. My parents had been to the University of Leeds back in the 1950s, and I had family in the city, so Leeds was not such a complete unknown to me. 

It is remarkable how such a proportionally short time in your life can make such a difference. I really enjoyed my time in Leeds, and looking back, it did give me the grounding I needed to be a speech and language therapist. I know that at least some of my cohort stayed in the profession until retirement and some, like me, are still working.

Graduated 1983 and still loving every minute

Since graduating I have had a 41 year career in the NHS as a Speech and Language Therapist and I still love what I do. I remain extremely grateful to Leeds Polytechnic for giving me the knowledge and skills that have led to feeling like I want to go to work most mornings! 

I have had many SLT students on placement with me during my time in the NHS. I've also worked in the higher education sector as a lecturer, so I've experienced Speech and Language Therapy from many positions. I've worked everywhere from Paediatric Intensive Care (PICU), to community teams for people who have lost speech and language after stroke. Currently, I work in Augmentative and Alternative Communication and I am beginning to wonder what the last phase of my working like will look like... not retirement yet, but some sort of stepping back from the current pressures of a leadership role. 

Giving back, supporting the future

That chance to begin to come to terms with myself as a young adult was so significant for me that imagining wanting and needing to do that and worrying about supporting yourself seems such a challenge today. I choose to support the Bright Futures Scholarship as a way of giving back to future generations of SLTs, who are so very important. Moreover, I'm giving back in part to a city I still visit and love! This being the case, it's only right to try and make a small contribution to making a stepping stone for others.

Giving back to Leeds Beckett is also, for me, a consciously political act. I had a grant to support my time at Leeds Poly, and I remain grateful for that too, and I wish that this were still something that we could offer people who study today.