{"id":17333,"date":"2021-01-26T10:51:54","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T10:51:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=17333"},"modified":"2021-01-26T10:51:54","modified_gmt":"2021-01-26T10:51:54","slug":"talking-education-school-manager-syed-shares-his-lightbulb-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/student-stories\/talking-education-school-manager-syed-shares-his-lightbulb-moment\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking education: school manager Syed shares his “lightbulb moment”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A boarding school manager from Birmingham talks about the “lightbulb moment” he realised his career ambition in a new podcast series, hosted by presenter Gemma Cairney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life \u2026 On Our Terms<\/em><\/a> is an eight-episode podcast series from The Open University (OU) discussing a range of topics about life and the inspiring routes to success taken by some famous names. The series also hears directly from young undergraduate students of the OU, who each have a fascinating story to share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Student

Syed says the support from his fellow students has been a bonus to his studies<\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Episode One features 28-year-old Syed Bilal Ahmed, head of boarding at a school in Kidderminster, talking to former Radio 1 DJ and Birmingham-born Gemma Cairney about education and his personal route to gain a degree. Syed is a second-year student at the OU, studying a BA (Hons) in Health and Social Care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Syed told Gemma it is his ambition to be an Ofsted Inspector and how his career goal was inspired by an inspection at his school by Ofsted. During the visit, he got chatting to the inspector and they discussed the idea of university. When Syed said he was too busy with work to take time off and get a degree, the inspector suggested the OU and the rest, as they say, is history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to multi-award-winner Gemma, 35, who admits her own path to a successful career was far from average, Syed likened the opportunity to a lightbulb moment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cI just\u00a0thought\u00a0kerching! This is it. I’ve always thought\u00a0about going into\u00a0university, but\u00a0I just\u00a0don\u2019t have the time.\u00a0You know, working full-time and I have a family that depends on me.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<\/em>\n

\u201cI think education never stops for a person; it just carries on. It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re 20, 30, 40, 50. That\u2019s the great thing about The Open University, it doesn\u2019t matter where you are at, what state you are in, in your life you can carry on studying.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\"Gemma

Broadcaster Gemma Cairney hosts brand-new OU podcast<\/p><\/div>\n

He told Gemma that the support of the student community at the OU is also something which surprised him. He\u2019s enjoyed online chats with fellow students on forums, even meeting in person in between the lockdowns of the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe student community is great. It is very supporting and one of the best things about the OU, it\u2019s something that keeps me going.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<\/em>\n

\u201cSince joining the OU I\u2019ve realised that by studying I can get somewhere high up the ladder, I can carry on climbing the ladder. I would have never dreamt of that before.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Gemma described his story as \u201cvery inspirational\u201d and said:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWhat you’re doing\u00a0really shows an approach to kind of forward thinking, in terms of how\u00a0it\u00a0doesn’t matter what role you have in your working world,\u00a0you want to continue learning.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Each week on the series<\/a>, Gemma is joined by another well-known guest who has forged their own, very successful path in life. On this occasion it was British spoken word artist, poet, rapper and podcast presenter George Mpanga, better known as The Poet, who joined her to discuss his personal career path through education, his love of lifelong learning and how society can make education more inclusive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The multi-talented artist and author says he is back on the learning path doing a PhD on the topic of value innovation, which he describes as \u201ca little bit economics, a little bit education\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To hear Gemma talking to Syed and George The Poet listen to the podcast here: https:\/\/podfollow.com\/life-on-our-terms<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A boarding school manager from Birmingham talks about the “lightbulb moment” he realised his career ambition in a new podcast series, hosted by presenter Gemma Cairney. Life \u2026 On Our Terms is an eight-episode podcast series from The Open University (OU) discussing a range of topics about life and the inspiring routes to success taken […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1525,1640],"class_list":["post-17333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-stories","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}