Gina Sharp is Stakeholder Engagement Manager for the Access, Open and Cross-curricular Innovation team at the Open University.
I was lucky enough to be able to travel to the Open University graduation ceremony in Harrogate last weekend to be on the registration desk. This is the second time I’ve worked at a graduation ceremony and to be honest it’s a little bit addictive!
As with the Birmingham graduation ceremony that I worked at in May, it was wonderful to see so many different people graduating: old, young, different races, diverse backgrounds and economic situations and yet all united by a common cause – the ability to prove to themselves that with some hard work, they could achieve in education.
We know that often the people who come to the Open University have been told at school that they will never amount to anything, or the traditional brick university hasn’t been for them and yet the graduation ceremony proves that it can be done. One set of graduates really stood out to me – a Mum, complete with her two adult daughters all coming to graduate at the same time! What an achievement and a great way to study with a built-in support system close at hand!
This also reminded me that it is so important to have that support – whether it be from family or friends – so that when you are having a tough week and you can’t even begin to think how you are going to start that assignment with the deadline looming – they are there to encourage and cheer you on from the side lines. How brilliant then to see so many of our graduates supported on the day by proud friends and family who no doubt had been on the end of a late-night phone call or two or had mopped up tears when things were feeling difficult.
The Harrogate conference centre where we held the graduation ceremony is a really beautiful design with a large spiral walkway in the middle of the building which leads up to the auditorium. Seeing graduates walk up that spiral staircase to collect their degrees was special – it felt like it signified the seemingly never-ending years of work to finally collect their prize at the top!
It’s always particularly special for me to be at a graduation as I am currently studying for my own Open degree, with a focus on history and art history. I have just started my first Level 2 module, so I still have a way to go. But as a member of staff, it’s so useful to also be a student so that I have a good idea of what the student experience is like and can feedback to colleagues about various aspects of that.
So if, like me, you’re in the middle of your study at the moment, I hope this blog encourages you to keep going so that you too can achieve your goal, whatever your motivations are. Looking forward to that moment when we get to ‘cross the stage’ and celebrate all it has taken to get to that point.