AN UPPERMILL student with an eye on history hopes to map out a future in a museum or an art gallery after present day A-Level exam success.
Verity Woodward went out of the area to study towards A* grades in Sociology, Textiles and the extended project qualification (EPQ) and an A in English at Ashton Sixth Form College.
And she will be heading to Cambridge University for a course in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic.
There she will focus on the history, material culture, languages and literature of the peoples of Britain, Ireland and the Scandinavian world in the earlier Middle Ages.
It will also involve learning languages like Old Norse and medieval Welsh, Irish and Latin, while reading text like Beowulf in its original script.
“It’s very much centred around History and Languages and I’ll get to learn Old English and Latin,” said Verity.
“After that, I’d quite like to maybe go into working in museums or art galleries.
“It’s a subject that’s not widely available, which is why I was so invested in getting in. It’s the only place I could study early medieval Britain.
“And I find that what I study can apply today. Much of the modern media is based on that period.
“All of the fantasy media you see, like Dungeons and Dragons, is based around the legends from about 500 to 1000AD too.
“You also see how a lot of conflicts work, and to me that feels quite familiar.
“It’s really nice just to see how regular people lived as well and feel how similar it is to how it is today.”
Verity, who was home schooled, may have made the grade but that did not stop her being nervous – and operating a back-up plan.
“I was very nervous,” she added. “I managed to get through to UCAS quite quickly, which was lucky, because it normally crashes.
“So I had that lined up just in case.
“On paper, my grades didn’t really look like a Cambridge applicant’s grades for GCSE, so it was really nice Ashton Sixth Form College accepted me and put me on the Cambridge route anyway.
“I did have outside support, but Ashton played a big role. Especially my teachers, they put in a lot of effort.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.