A natural sociologist - or 'how I changed course'

Amy Dower glows with energy, with enthusiasm for education, and with a wish to promote social change and to "help and support people".

Amy had completed her A levels in Media and Film back in 2008, but had chosen not to continues her studies and instead had gone into a career in the hospitality industry. She'd worked in pubs and restaurants since she was 15, but the events of early 2020 had changed all that.

"It was a Covid decision," she recalls. "I'd lost my job and had to go back and live with my mum. I was turning 30 as well. I felt it was time for a career change."

In 2021, she decided to enrol on an Access to HE course in Social Sciences at Calderdale College in West Yorkshire.

"I wouldn't have felt comfortable going straight into university," she explains. "And I wanted to do a diploma in a course that was relevant to the subject area I was interested in studying."

She feels it was a good decision.

"I absolutely loved it," she says. "I didn't know what to expect going back, but I think when you're older you start to appreciate the value of education. You don't realise that as a teenager – you enjoy it a lot more as an adult. And, of course, the teachers were really nice, and I loved the range of topics."

Those topics included a module called 'Crime and Deviance'. Amy had initially planned to go into counselling, but that module literally inspired her to change course.

"I think I'd have been totally lost if I'd gone to university without first doing the Access diploma, and I don't think I'd have picked the right university course," she says. "It sounds funny, but I think I'm naturally a sociologist. When we learnt about those theories on that module, the world started to make sense."

So, she enrolled on a degree in Psychology and Sociology at Leeds Trinity University – a programme from which she's graduated this summer with a First.

She's now about to start a Master's in Public Policy at Leeds Beckett University, and has ambitions for a career in social research. She says the Access to HE Diploma changed her life.

"I feel like a different person now," she says. "I'm the first generation of my family to go to university. I've come to understand that learning is invaluable. It will not be wasted. Whatever you do with it, education is never wasted."