Posted on 3 November, 2014 by Bryony

Studying at Birkbeck with dyslexia and dyspraxia

Nazmeen Akhtar

This article was contributed by Nazmeen Akhtar, a student in the final year of Birkbeck’s BSc Social Sciences.

I hated school. I was in all the bottom sets, and struggled to understand what I was being taught. As a result I never felt engaged with my education, and when I left school at age 16 I felt that it was one of the happiest days of my life.

I didn’t know it then, but the reason that I had such difficulty with my studies was that I had undiagnosed dyslexia and dyspraxia.

After school I worked in call centres and shops. At work I also found that I struggled with certain tasks – particularly structuring my work and organising things. I ended up in an endless cycle of low-paid jobs, none of which were fulfilling me. I was fed up.

A discussion with a recruitment consultant made me realise that if I wanted to get a job that I was interested in, I would need a degree. So ten years after I had left school, I began to consider the possibility of returning to education.

Despite my previous negative experiences, once I’d decided to apply for university I just got on and did it. The nerves didn’t really kick in until I had to sit down and write my first assignment. By then I’d been for testing with the Birkbeck disability office and had received my diagnoses of dyslexia and dyspraxia.

My biggest difficulty was organising information and structuring my responses to assignment questions. However, through the Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) I received a laptop so that I could work at home, in my own time. That was really important to me, as I found it very difficult to work in the library, with the distraction of having other people around. By far the most important part of the support package I received was one-to-one sessions with my support tutor. As soon as I get the handbook for a new module she sits with me and helps me plan everything – time management, structure, reading. With her help I can manage all the other elements of the course, which means that when it comes to writing the assignment I am a lot less anxious. Fellow Birkbeck student Graeme Wilkinson agrees that the support of a tutor is key. He said: “I saw a tutor once a week and she really helped me structure my essays and make the most of my new software. My marks went up immediately, and I started getting Firsts for my pieces of coursework.”

Receiving my diagnoses was very emotional. Everything fell into place in terms of why I’d struggled so much at school, and I finally could see that those problems hadn’t been my fault. I’m now less than a year away from graduation and am predicted to receive a 2:1 or first-class honours degree. It feels amazing to be in this position and my confidence has soared as a result. The disability support at Birkbeck has been outstanding and the disability support services I have received through DSA have enabled me to overcome any barriers.

I am currently applying for an internship with an MP for next year. The internship involves one day per week studying leadership. I never would have applied for a job that involved studying before I began my degree but this is a result of being much more confident now in my ability to learn and to achieve.

I can say with absolute confidence that finding out the reality about my complex study needs and being supported through the barriers they caused was the only thing which was going to help me break out of the cycle I was in. The reality of studying with complex needs is that it is not easy – but it is achievable and the end result is most definitely worth pursuing.

National Dyslexia Awareness Week runs from 3 – 9 November 2014.

. Read all 7 comments . Category: Higher education . Tags: confidence, disability office, Disabled Students Allowance, DSA, dyslexia, National Dyslexia Awareness Week, student support, success

Posted on 20 October, 2014 by Bryony

How breast cancer gave me the courage to start a Master’s degree

This post was contributed by Cansu Kucuk, an alumna of Birkbeck’s MSc in Marketing Communications.

Cansu Kucuk

There are certain events that most people hope they’ll never have the misfortune of experiencing – and being told you have breast cancer at age 25 is probably one of them.

With one fateful appointment in a grim, grey room, everything I’d ever hoped for and dreamed of felt like it was taken away from me.

Control of my life was suddenly out of my hands and my days were overtaken with all things cancer: doctors, hospitals, waiting rooms, scary decisions, scary survival statistics and scary treatments.

I built up boxes of information on operations, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, long-term medication, how to choose a wig, how to keep your nails from falling out and what symptoms I’d have to permanently watch out for.

It was overwhelmingly terrifying – like falling into a parallel universe where nothing is real and everything is one long nightmare you can’t pinch yourself out from.

You’d think that the best thing to do at a time like that would be to concentrate on survival and taking it easy for a while, right?

But not me. Perhaps I was reckless or stuck in a sort of fight mode, but instead I took a step I’d been considering for years, yet talked myself out of, by applying to study for a master’s degree in marketing communications.

I’d convinced myself that I didn’t have enough time or money; I’d even said at age 24 that I was getting too old for university.

It’s funny how the threat of impending death makes you realise the pointlessness of self-imposed obstacles.

I attended the open evening for Birkbeck, University of London an hour after having my first Zoladex treatment – nicknamed “the horse shot” – and started my university days combining full time work and weekly hospital visits.

It wasn’t as easy as I’d like to make out. I’d love to say I breezed through the first term of after work evening lectures with painful bones from my treatment. But really, I had a tough time trying to stop myself from quitting.

However difficult and time-consuming it was combining my studies with a job and coping with my many health problems during my first year, I can’t put into words the amount of satisfaction and motivation that going to university gave me.

By taking control of one aspect of my life, not only did it feel like I was achieving something and moving forward, the amount I learnt from the lecturers and students I met on the course was priceless. The support I received from the disability office at Birkbeck on my toughest days kept me going.

Studying gave me the willpower to get through the most frightening days of my life – there’s little time to think about how much your bones hurt when you’re busy studying for exams and planning projects for group assignments.

Everyone has their own challenges – be they personal commitments, financial, disabilities or simply being too busy.

But try to escape these traps and aim for whatever you may have been putting off – it’s never as scary as you imagine. And after everything I finished my dissertation, making the fight worthwhile.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For information about breast cancer, visit Breast Cancer Care’s website or call their free, confidential helpline on 0808 800 6000.

. Read all 2 comments . Category: Higher education

Posted on 6 October, 2014 by Guy Collender

World Teachers’ Day and thinking through the benefits of teaching teenagers

This post was contributed by Emily Williams, a PhD student studying Humanities and Cultural Studies in Birkbeck’s School of Arts.

Yesterday was World Teachers’ Day and this annual celebration of such an important profession has made me reflect on my own teaching experiences. This spring I gave six 40-minute tutorials to two groups of six Year 9 and 10 pupils (aged 14 and 15) from Eastbury Comprehensive School in east London. The placement was arranged by The Brilliant Club – an award-winning non-profit organisation that exists to widen access to top universities for outstanding pupils from non-selective state schools.

Teaching my first lesson about propaganda posters in Mao Zedong’s China was a daunting experience. I had planned a relatively complex discussion of the term ‘propaganda’ and had no idea what to expect from the students. Would they pay attention? Would they participate? Thankfully, they were switched on and engaged, making thoughtful comments and participating eagerly. I think they particularly enjoyed the anti-Nazi Disney film we watched, featuring Donald Duck in Nazi Germany!

In subsequent lessons we moved on to looking at Maoist China, and while I know they found this section difficult, I was impressed with how quickly they grasped the major historical events that we covered. Where they really started to shine, however, was when we moved on to visual analysis of the posters. One of my major aims was to teach them that there isn’t a right answer for everything. So often, our education system seems to focus on exam preparation, with its attendant narrow conceptions of knowledge. With visual analysis, there was no right answer – I was genuinely interested in how they saw the posters. Some students couldn’t shake themselves out of their normal learning patterns and just wrote what they thought I wanted to read, but a few students really got creative, and came up with some really interesting observations, looking at gender positioning in the posters, or rhetorical strategies for dealing with enemies.

The course was seriously challenging – forcing pupils to think critically about the concept of propaganda, develop an understanding of the history of Mao’s China, and carry out visual analysis on so-called propaganda posters. On top of that, they also had to grapple with a tailor-made online platform, which gave each pupil their own space to gather research in preparation for their final assignment.

Most of my students were already planning on going to university, but I hope my course gave them a further glimpse of both their own potential and the sorts of learning and research they can undertake. At our Brilliant Club graduation ceremony in Oxford, it was clear that the students were proud of their work, and I hope many of them gained in confidence as a result.

I think working with young people is really important for academics. My personal research looks at China, a country often misunderstood and misconstrued in the media and popular culture. While what can be accomplished in six short lessons is limited, I hope that I have raised their interest in China, and also helped them think more critically about how information is communicated and perceptions are shaped. We were looking at posters from Mao’s China, but the lessons about rhetoric and persuasion apply just as much to understanding advertising and the media today. I think academics can also benefit from this sort of work, both from having to learn to communicate our research more clearly and simply, but also from the insights young people can provide. A colleague of mine told me the whole frame of his thesis came into focus based on one observation by a student.

Working with Brilliant Club was time-consuming, but I think also has a lot of benefits. For many PhD students, this will be our only chance to design a course, and this (I hope!) will help us in job applications in the future. It’s also a chance to remember why we’re in education in the first place: the production of knowledge is our central concern, but for me, the opportunity to communicate this knowledge to new audiences is just as important.

. Reply . Category: Arts, Higher education . Tags: China, Mao Zedong, propaganda

Posted on 23 September, 2014 by Bryony

A toxic mix…the demise of a Widening Participation Outreach programme for low-income parents

This post was contributed by Heather Finlay, Programme Co-ordinator, Higher Education Introductory Studies (HEIS) Outreach in Children’s Centres and Kerry Harman, Programme Director, HEIS.

Recent policy shifts in the areas of higher education (HE), welfare and childcare services have produced a toxic mix that has contributed to the demise of a widening participation (WP) outreach programme for low-income parents at Birkbeck. But, as Professor Claire Callender asks when commenting more generally on the drastic decline in part-time student numbers in HE since the introduction of increased fees in 2012, ‘does anyone care’? And for that matter, does anyone even know? In a recent issue of the Guardian, Richard Adams reported recent statistics from the Office of Fair Access in an article claiming that the ‘University tuition fee rise has not deterred poorer students from applying’. This is great news and an argument popular with Conservative party politicians when justifying the increased fees in HE. The problem is that the claim is not entirely accurate. While the number of 18 to 21 year old students from disadvantaged backgrounds applying to HE has increased, the increased fees have had an adverse impact on specific groups, including part-time students and low-income parents.

Low-income parents, particularly those who are single parents, face a number of challenges if they decide to pursue HE study including finding affordable and flexible childcare, negotiating an HE system they may be unfamiliar with and managing their family obligations. In an attempt to provide access to HE for this often difficult to reach group, Birkbeck had been offering an outreach programme in Sure Start Children’s Centres since 2007 in some of the poorest boroughs in London. The outreach programme was available during the day, local to the participants and included free childcare during the sessions. And, up to 2012/13, very few of the students paid any tuition fees because they were eligible for government-backed fee grants which covered all their fees. Modules from Higher Education Introductory Studies (HEIS) were used on the programme and the pedagogic approach was designed to be inclusive and incorporate the experience of the participants . (Higher Education Introductory Studies is a level 4 Certificate of HE that provides a supported pathway into HE level study for students with non-traditional academic qualifications and no recent study experience.) A recent, externally funded evaluation of the provision indicated that the experience was transformative for parents participating in the programme, both for them as individuals and as parents. Yet despite this, enrolments fell by 50% for the 2012/13 intake on the programme and in 2013, even with an intensive recruiting campaign in the local community, there were no enrolments on modules at the Children’s Centres.

While further research is needed to better understand the factors contributing to the collapse in enrolment on the outreach programme, anecdotal evidence suggests that a toxic mix of factors is impacting the decision of low-income parents to NOT take up HE study. The abolition of government-funded tuition fee grants for low-income part-time students in 2012/13 and their replacement with student loans is one factor. Another is the increase in tuition fees because of the withdrawal of government funds for teaching in 2012/13. This was definitely a matter of concern, not only for prospective applicants but also for Sure Start Centre staff who play a significant role in recruiting to the programme. A fee waiver attached to the modules running at the Children’s Centres was not enough to persuade parents to apply as many were averse to taking out a loan to ‘pay’ for any subsequent study towards a degree. Furthermore, recent changes to the welfare system have increased the pressure for lone parents to be in paid work. This includes the requirement for lone parents to be available for work once children reach five years of age, as well as the need to be in work in order to avoid the consequences of the benefit cap. Participants attending pre-enrolment information sessions (Learning Cafes) for the outreach programme spoke about the need to be available to commence work if a job offer was made and were thus reluctant to embark on a programme of study. What’s more, reduced Sure Start Centre budgets are making it increasingly difficult to resource the provision of free, onsite childcare as well as the work needed to support low-income parents in their decision to commence HE level study.

At a time when policy shifts are focused on getting lone parents into employment, it is important that this is not done in a way that prevents them from accessing HE. As work becomes a less certain route out of poverty, with over three-fifths (62%) of children in poverty living in a working household, pathways into higher paid work need to remain available.

Category Archives: Higher education

Studying at Birkbeck with dyslexia and dyspraxia

How breast cancer gave me the courage to start a Master’s degree

World Teachers’ Day and thinking through the benefits of teaching teenagers

A toxic mix…the demise of a Widening Participation Outreach programme for low-income parents

Further reading