Studying a degree is not an easy task. And it was made much harder for Alison Davies, the 2019 winner of the Alan Jenkins Memorial Award, when she also had to face serious illness, redundancy and bereavement during her studies.

Her husband, who passed away before she completed the degree, told her to “just be you”, and that is exactly what she’s doing by successfully completing her degree.

In her award entry, she said: “Balancing bereavement, studies, another restructure, redundancy and my own cancer diagnosis, two major operations and current chemotherapy has been challenging. People say I am strong, so will use this strength and resilience for my continuing journey, but for now recovery and health are more important. The award will help me ‘to be me’ as my husband wished; he believed in me and would have been very proud.”

Here you can watch our interview with Alison at graduation.

You can also check out the interviews with all our undergraduate and postgraduate top graduate award winners. If you have any questions about our courses, you can get in touch with our friendly Admissions team.