Definitely the secret to persuing with a degree, is to give it time, time to adjust, time to make friends and time to settle in. I can honestly say that my studying at University has been nothing short of amazing. After studying for a Degree in my 20’s at a Polytechnic – doing totally the wrong subject and having a 2 year old in tow and commuting – it was very difficult – I left the degree before completing it, but I always throughout my life – had it in mind to go back and achieve a Degree. Then after running a cleaning business for 10 years, having the hassle of running it, all the problems – I just began to think that there should be more to life than this.
I started to think about Creativity, we are all creative at Junior school but with alot of us it gets lost in life, I really was talented at Drama at Junior school and I decided to persue what was in my heart – so I auditioned for a Foundation Degree course at the Birmingham Conservatoire – I got in – I think the tutor was impressed when we had to say something about ourselves and I told them of how I once won £10,000.00 on a scratch card – yes it’s true and people always love that story. from there I got in at Derby University on an Audition day. We had to write a review of a play and I had just seen one on the West-end that I loved – as all through my University journey everything has just fallen into place.
I have always wanted to write a play about my families WhatsApp group called Family Chat and that is what I wanted to call the play – Family Chat and imagine my surprise and joy when in one of our lessons we had to write our own scenes of a play. There was a chance for me to stage it at Student Scratch Night – for 20 minutes – in the studio, we all pitched our ideas and mine got chosen. I advertised at Uni and got Actors (mainly from the year above), rehearsals began and we were almost ready to perform then wham – Covid happened a Scratch night on 28th March 2020 was cancelled….. I was gutted ….. but everything for a reason……. with life there are always disappointments – at least you keep on trying.
If you are studying something you love and is in your heart …………. it is loveable .. it is work but you never want to put it down .. you just want to learn more and more. I love every assignment and soak up the learning like a sponge. When discovering your “creative- self,” you achieve a new happiness… a happiness that is difficult to explain, but some days I just feel so happy that I could burst. In acting classes we play, we forget about rules and have fun. Yes, I stick out like a sore thumb being my age – but the other students accept me. They know that I am there because I am serious about my passion – I’m serious about Theatre Arts. What a sad world we will have if we lose creativity, if we lose the ability to play. I made up a saying – “Create for today, for a better tomorrow.” If you are reading this, imagine what you really wanted to do at Junior School – what would happen if you rediscovered this ambition?
University at 54 