I love learning but I am tired.
I spent ten years at undergraduate level trying and fighting to get my degree. I encountered systems and structures that were discriminatory and impossible for a disabled student like me to work with (or around). When I finally achieved my degree it was a first class honours degree. My final year dissertation had one of the highest marks of the year and is now published. That was thanks to a team of tutors who were willing to work with me, around the system to allow me to thrive and it was then I found my love of learning.
Since then I have spent six years trying to achieve a post graduate qualification. Once again I found systems so rigid I was forced to quit. It was not quite discrimination, within the letter of the law but it was the spirit of discrimination that I encountered. It wasn’t that the universities and systems were actively ableist, its just that there was no action to counter any ableism I encountered or willingness to work with me. Whilst there was a very legitimate reason for leaving one of my post graduate courses, I didn’t really have a choice to leave the others.
I am currently on my third or fourth last chance, I forget and lose count. This course is perfect for me, and I am really really enjoying the studying and the community I find myself in. I have the flexibility I need to achieve what I want. But, and there is always, it seems a but with me. I had to restart my first year, again, through a combination of ill thought through choices and consequences that I may or may not have been aware of (and coronavirus). I am currently writing (and should have finished last week) an essay I started writing this time last year. I was so determined to finish it before Christmas.
However, now I find myself once again unable to focus on my learning because I am having to put all my efforts into fighting a funding system that isn’t willing to accommodate or be flexible with me. I don’t know at this point if I will be able to afford to continue the course, it all depends on a funding decision, which because of Christmas and coronavirus is going to have to wait. This is my last chance to get a post graduate qualification. I can’t see me getting another. But, despite how much I am enjoying the learning and the writing I am really tempted to just give up. In some ways giving up before I am forced to give up is better, at least its my choice. But its not fair, or right that I should be in this position. I know I can study and achieve at this level, but I am just not being given the choice and the support to do so. Even though its not discrimination, it still feels discriminating, especially when I think of all those other students I have met along my way who are now qualified, working or onto further study. I just want to study and to learn. That’s all, its not hard is it?
