“You Are More Capable Than You Think”
A recent graduate from Stoke-on-Trent shares his experiences of university.
Higher Horizons is part of the government-funded Uni Connect programme that works with young learners who are statistically unlikely to attend university. Lewis, who recently graduated in Biomedical Science at Keele University, is one example. Of course, the reasons why they are unlikely to enrol cannot be summed up in a statistic or a postcode; the human story behind it can be more complex than that.
Lewis grew up in Newstead, Stoke-on-Trent. He was smart at learning things, especially in the sciences, but not always the smartest at being a student; he would mess around and coast, and educationally always seemed to be, as Lewis terms it, a “fish going upstream”, swimming against the current.
When it came to choosing his degree he admits his approach wasn’t ideal; he picked Biomedical Science because it had the word ‘medical’ in it and it was science, which he knew he liked. The tutor kept on pressuring him into a decision and time was running out.
He knew he wanted to stay local, so applied to what he thought were five ‘local’ universities. He over-relied on the UCAS search facility which brought Canterbury up as an option; so, one of his five choices was a wasted one as he was never going to go to Kent!
To an extent, the UCAS website was all Lewis had. Family circumstances were at times all-consuming – his mother suffered with severe arthritis and his father had been made redundant from the pottery industry and took work where he could get it. Getting through the present, Lewis’ family were relying on school/college careers advice when it came to Lewis’ future. Unfortunately, time with a careers adviser, which was one for over 1000 students, was limited. Besides, Lewis’ experience with careers advisers had not been great. He recalls one who disregarded his academic potential and handed him a leaflet on fence painting; “she saw a working class man and … cast me aside – ‘he’ll do this’”.
His experience with teachers had also been mixed and it was the bad ones that had had some of the most impact. One primary school teacher actively disliked his family. She would snatch work from him, tear it up, tell him he was terrible, and deliberately avoid teaching him how to hold a pencil while teaching others how to do so; to this day he holds a pen unconventionally.
The greater damage was how he internalised this. He was “ashamed” and stopped putting any effort into his work. It “took a long time” to overcome these feelings and during his studies in later life would have panic attacks and periods of serious self-doubt. He played into what people expected of him and unsurprisingly this meant coasting, procrastinating, and slipping up. He did this at university too. He bought into the myth that you don’t have to apply yourself in the first year and so didn’t. This approach also ran into his second year. This was not helped by problems at home where, diagnosed with dementia, his grandmother’s health was deteriorating
There were, however, wake-up calls and Lewis acted on them. The first was at GCSE when he failed a Maths mock exam and from that point he turned up to school early and stayed late; he eventually went from grades 2-3 to grade 6 in higher tier Maths. At university, he did what was needed, studying all day in a cafe on campus, treating it like a 9-5 job. By the time he was in his third year, he was getting first class grades and had turned it around. He scored a grade on his dissertation that was in the top 20% of his cohort and graduated in the summer of 2024 with a 2:1.
Lewis’ family on the surface were not ‘university material’. Lewis recalls when growing up that university was “out of my reach” and seemed “unattainable”. His parents had some GCSE’s, but married and started their family young. No one had been to university in their family and there was nothing to suggest that would change any time soon.
It was, however, circumstance and opportunity that determined this rather than brains. While “not academically smart in a traditional sense”, they were still “really smart” people who demonstrated plenty of interest in the world around them. His mother knew a lot about animals and would read, draw, and paint. His father ingeniously constructed a bar at the end of the garden complete with optics and a fridge, and liked discussing current affairs. His brother would dismantle objects and then reassemble them, finding out how they work.
On reflection and in a different time and place, Lewis thinks his mother could have studied something veterinary at university and his father could have studied engineering. With Lewis getting good marks at school, his mother was keen for him to at least explore the university option.
One day a Higher Horizons representative promoted a Y10 residential at his school and Lewis pursued it – it was free and was time away with mates. As for the actual place he was going, Staffordshire University, he expected to be a “fish out of water” there; he was bright but always viewed himself (and still does) as more practical than academic.
However, he saw his accommodation halls, chilled in the communal area, watched TV, saw the kitchen, and suddenly he could “envisage” himself being there. For two days to “all intents and purposes” he was a student and “got a taste for it”. He found himself talking to people from his own school whom he had not spoken to before; they “quickly became close mates – being in the university environment helped with that”. Lewis says he “felt more comfortable there” than he ever expected and asked himself, “could I see myself here in four or five years’ time?” to which he could answer “I very much could.” Before the residential the only view of university he had was one visible on TV screens, often American, often involving shared rooms, and it didn’t appeal to him at all.
Lewis didn’t decide there and then to go to university but a year later when he did, it was on the premise that “if it’s anything like that visit it can’t be that bad.”
Lewis didn’t always make it easy for himself and got himself into holes. However, each time he dug himself out. Staying late at school, working 9 ‘til 5 on campus, he would climb his way back up and out.
Lewis recalls how his father did night shifts doing a job that he hated. He would come home and get physically upset about it, but this was never in front of the children, and he has only since shared this. He persisted because his family needed him to. When he secured truck work abroad, spending weeks away from his family, Lewis’ brother would take on caring responsibilities while he was away. Again, his father and his brother stepped up, put the hours and effort in, and did what was needed. Lewis praises his family’s work ethic as “second-to-none”, a work ethic that was very much evident at critical points of Lewis’ own university work.
Lewis turned things around and overcame adversity because that is what his family had always done. Lewis’ proud parents, siblings, and grandmother, three generations of his family, saw him walk across the stage in his mortar board and gown, but had seen him through the whole journey; they were ‘university material’ after all.
Lewis is working in retail at the moment, saving money for travelling and in the short term wants to get back into a lab, for a charity if possible. He is playing the long game; at one time he would have procrastinated and made a hasty, perhaps not well-informed, decision, but not now. He did actually get onto a graduate scheme, but withdrew as he had serious reservations about their methods. He thought about it long and hard and had discussions with his family about it. Again, this was a very different Lewis from the young eighteen-year-old who was choosing his university courses and locations.
One of the biggest positives about going to university was that Lewis grew. Lewis looks back now, and while he respects the old Lewis as the crucial precursor to the man he is today, he questions whether he would get on with the Lewis of his younger years. In this respect he got more from higher education than some of his friends whose route to it was less turbulent. It is OK to not be good straightaway and likens university to a mountain that if you approached in the same manner you came in, could result in you being “buried underneath it”. It is no bad thing to start from the bottom and climb up; not being a great student does not stop you from becoming one.
An example of his growth is how he came to accept feedback and adapted his work accordingly. In Year 1 of his degree he was “stubborn” and took feedback personally. He eventually learnt to detach himself from the feedback and appreciated that those teaching him at university wanted him to succeed, a realisation that helped him overcome some past demons regarding education.
Lewis’ advice to young learners, especially young working class men, is don’t let a 5-10 minute laugh get in the way of your long-term future and it is not “uncool to be good at something”. His advice to anyone is don’t let your past hold you back or set yourself in stone with your present.
You can change, you can grow, and you can always turn things around; “you are more capable than you think”.
