19 June 2008

Second degree for Sheila - 34 years later

Retired solicitor Sheila Smith will celebrate the award of her second degree from the University of Dundee this week - 34 years after first crossing the stage at the Caird Hall - an achievement she has reached while having to cope with being profoundly deaf.

Sheila will collect an MA in History at the graduation ceremony this morning.

Sheila has suffered from deafness since she was three-years-old but it is a condition she says has worsened as she has got older.

"It is something I have had to live with almost all my life but in recent years it has certainly got worse," said Sheila.

"But it is not something that means you can’t do something like this, come to University and study and complete a degree. It does make it hard at times - in my fourth-year we had a lot of seminar-based teaching where a lot of different people around the room can be speaking and when you are trying to follow things by lip-readng that makes things very tricky."

"But the staff and my fellow students were extremely helpful, and the Disability Unit at the University were very good, and with their help I’ve managed to complete my degree, which I am absolutely delighted about."

Sheila added that returning to study has proved to be just the tonic for her in dealing with retirement.

"I worked as a solicitor in Dundee for over 25 years and I used to laugh when people said to me `prepare for retirement’. I mean, what was there to prepare for? Then I retired and quickly found that I was completely at a loose end and was going to drive myself mad!" she said.

"So I started an evening course at the University in January 2004 to see if I liked it and if I was suited to going back to study. One thing led to another and that summer I started my history degree."

"It has been really good in giving me something structured to follow and stayting active. I couldn’t have done an Open University course, because I would always have been putting things off - it was the structure I missed and needed to keep me on track."

Now she has completed her degree, Sheila is contemplating further study.

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk