In June 2017, I graduated from the University of Stirling with a first-class BA (Hons) degree in English Studies. During my time as an undergraduate, I learned how to be a highly effective writer, researcher and editor. Thanks to the flexibility of my degree, I was able to study a range of subjects including journalism, politics and linguistics.
Over the course of my undergraduate degree, my focus on English Studies became more intense. The modules I completed are as follows: Author, Reader, Text; Texts and Contexts; Meaning and Representation; Writing and Language; Writing and Identity; Restoration and the Eighteenth Century; Modernism and Modernity; British Romanticism; Creative Writing; American Literature; and, Jane Austen.
In my honours year, I chose to undertake a Creative Writing dissertation which comprised of a long-form short story and a reflexive essay. My story investigated the unreliability of memory and the difference between ‘truth’ and ‘fact’. I received a first-class grade for my work.
Sadly, during the process of writing my dissertation, my supervisor – the poet and fiction writer Helen Lamb – passed away. She was a great source of support and encouragement to me and I was deeply shocked and saddened to hear that she was no longer with us. Her sudden passing forced me to stop and re-evaluate what I was doing my life.
Ultimately, I decided to apply for the MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of Stirling which will be completed in November 2018. This was a decision I was nervous about, but I took great comfort in the words of Eleanor Roosevelt who once said: ‘The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams’.
