Lucy Kitching
Posted : 1st September 2009
I left school at 16 with a few GCSEs and dropped out of a college course at the age of 17. I worked in various jobs and did a bit of travelling until discovering Fircroft when I was 25. It happened at a time when I was seriously beginning to wonder what on earth I was going to do next. I knew that I wanted to study but my previous experiences meant that I worried that I wasn’t really cut out for education. Also, I knew that I would have really struggled to combine work and study and for that reason I delayed getting back into education.
I’m from Leeds originally and was living in London when I applied for the course while working as a painter and decorator. I was thrilled when I got the offer of a place and dropped everything to come to Birmingham to be a full-time resident student. I have found that Fircroft really is designed for people like me, whose circumstances have prevented them from getting an education and I’m so glad that I decided to take the plunge.
My aim was to go to university, not necessarily to improve my career options but just to learn; I have had some great experiences in my life and lots of happy times but a “proper education” was what I always felt was missing. I hated not knowing things about history and literature and although I’d tried to read by myself, I really craved some academic guidance and teaching.
I now know that I did the right thing by coming to Fircroft and I was right about the thing that I suspected was missing. Getting an education has made me feel so much more fulfilled in life and I am proud to have invested this time in myself, although this is just the beginning. I applied for university with the help and support of the guidance tutors here and received offers for places on the courses of my choice from five universities. When I was younger I spent some time living in Greece working as a waitress, where I taught myself Greek - now I’ve accepted a place at Lucy Cavendish College at the University of Cambridge, where I’ll be studying Greek as part of my Modern and Medieval Languages degree!
The false starts that I had before coming here had made me wonder if I was destined to a life of failure. Fircroft has changed that negative perception and I have a new found confidence in the decisions that I make. Fircroft has required hard work and commitment but in return I have been able to study in the best possible way; alongside like-minded individuals who have struggled in the past but are working hard to get back on the right track, with full support and guidance from a dedicated team of staff and tutors.
