Case studies

Hello. My name is Mo. I was born in Iran, the north of Iran. I graduated in natural resources engineering from the university near my home town. My sister was a graduate there as well, in electronic engineering. My little brother graduated as well from the university. During my last year of study and after I graduated, I worked on a project with my senior lecturer about fish migration. During this project, some events happened to me and so I had to flee the country and come to the UK.

I went to Heathrow Airport and after two or three days they sent me to Glasgow. I didn’t have a choice. I was speaking to someone at the airport and told him they were sending me to Glasgow. He said Glasgow is good, the people are friendly. I remember then I couldn’t speak a word and didn’t know where I was. You know, we survived, me and my friend. We kind of met each other on the bus and so became friends. It took me about six months to settle in, in a flat.

One of the main barriers for me was language because I couldn’t communicate with anyone and I couldn’t say anything. I never imagined that I am going to live in a foreign country, so that’s why I never learned a new language properly. After six months, my solicitor sent me to an organisation and they introduced me to the Bridges Programmes. To be honest I didn’t have a good induction, so I wasn’t sure about them until one of my friends told me that it’s better to go there and be familiar with the new ways, new directions.

Because I had a bad experience in my career, I wasn’t happy to go back and do any kind of work in my degree subject, in my field. So I decided to change my career and I started from scratch. I went to college and was studying ESOL and HNC computing.

There were lots of problems in Glasgow – housing, finance, finding a job – and after one year I decided to move to London. At that time I got my ‘Status’, so I went to London. I tried to stay there but I couldn’t because there wasn’t any support, so I had to come back to Glasgow.

I went back to college. I finished and I got good marks and it was surprising for my lecturer because in the first year I was struggling with my problems – personal problems, language and many other things. The HNC finished and then I started studying HND. I finished the HND and I started university last year.

My name is Ying Luo. I grew up in China in a family of five and went to primary and secondary school there. I didn’t enjoy school. The classes were very large and the teachers had too many students to look after, so when I didn’t understand, it was difficult to ask questions. My parents weren’t able to help either, as they didn’t have much education, and they were working all the time. They tried to encourage us to learn but we didn’t realise the importance of education then.

After school, I got a job in a factory. I realised there, that to earn more you need more education. My sister and I moved to another city where a friend of ours helped us set up a shop for ladies’ clothes, but we knew so little about retail, and how to market and expand the business, that we only made a small profit.

Then I moved to the UK and everything changed. At first it was very difficult – I couldn’t speak English, I didn’t know anyone, I had no friends, and I didn’t have a job. I had my baby, which was a high point, but until I went to college to learn English, I felt very isolated.

When I was at college, I heard about Bridges Programmes, which helps people get work experience. So I went to Bridges and while I was there, I found out about the OU. The adviser told me about an Openings course they offered called ‘Learning to change’, so I decided to try it.

At first I thought I would just do one course, but I enjoyed the course so much that I did another two courses after that, which were ‘An introduction to business studies’ and ‘You and your money: personal finance in context’. While I was doing these courses, I got work in an office as a bookkeeper.

At first I found studying in English very hard, especially the telephone tutorials, but my friends and my boss at work helped and supported me. They made me believe in myself. Now I feel like a different person from when I first arrived in the UK – now I think I can try that; I can do it.

This year my daughter is ten years old. At work, my boss is offering a lot of training. I want to take a break from study to be able to spend more time with my daughter and take up the opportunity to progress at work. But I hope to come back to OU study again. I realise that to get on in life, you need qualifications.

My name is Eric and I am now 44. I grew up in Burundi, went to school there, and was accepted at the University of Burundi to study economics. My situation then changed.

In recent years I have been involved in various volunteer organisations and NGOs, including as a UNHCR field officer on the refugee food distribution programme. In the Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC], after the war that devastated the country for ten years, I was a counsellor in the rehabilitation centre for young people. Many young people had mental health problems due to the atrocity of the war, losing relatives or their entire family.

I came to the UK in 2002 as an asylum seeker in the north-west of England, where I went to college and completed a course in information technology. I moved to Scotland and in 2008 completed a college course in computing. I became involved with Bridges Programmes in Glasgow and their work placement programme.

Having been resident in Scotland now for ten years, I have been granted residency status. I am bilingual in French and English, and my life experiences have made me understand very well the importance of good communication in working with people. I have been interested in a career in nursing for some time, stemming from my involvement with the Red Cross in the Congo, and this led me to seek further education in nursing.

Successful completion of the pre-nursing course at Stow College in Glasgow has given me a very good grounding in the theory and practice of nursing, as it involved study of the topics that will be included within a nursing degree programme.

Through Bridges, I had a long-term work placement within a nursing environment caring for older people. Clients have a range of conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease, cerebrovascular disease and diabetes. This placement has reinforced my interest in a nursing career, and in developing my knowledge and understanding of these conditions, and of the attainment of ‘good health’.

To help me further prepare for a career in nursing, I am currently studying the Open University course Understanding health and social care. This study is developing a broad understanding of health and care, and of the different ways that care is provided to clients, and who provides this care. My OU course allows me to study from home while carrying on with my work commitments.

My work placement is no longer a placement as I am very happy to have been offered a paid job – employment as a healthcare assistant with my placement company. My first application for the nursing degree programme was not successful. However, I was encouraged to think again about my skills and qualities, and why this is a good career choice for me, and I have applied again. I now have the option of going to university full time to study nursing, or continuing with my new job and part-time study with the OU. I am hopeful for my future.

My name is Natalia and I come from Poland – the south-east of Poland. I have two brothers. When I was 18 I went to university in Warsaw, where I studied geology for five years. I got a masters degree and then I started working, not in geology at all but with a Polish humanitarian organisation. I actually started volunteering for them when I was a still a student, working on their website, doing some photography – which had been my hobby. One thing led to another and I got another project to do, so I started working with them full-time for approximately one year, when I decided to move to Scotland.

I was 26 when I came to Glasgow for the first time, when I was still working for the Polish humanitarian organisation. It was lovely here. I stayed in the West End. I loved Glasgow and decided to move here. I moved hoping that it would be really easy to get a similar job here, which never happened. It’s just, it turned out to be a little more complicated job-wise than I thought it was going to be.

It’s quite difficult to get into work if you didn’t study anything similar, or if you didn’t meet the right people, or volunteer for a certain amount of time. I have a friend who struggles to get into the field. She’s Scottish and she’s had problems, so it’s got nothing to do with me being foreign. It’s just the way it is. At some point I thought, what was I doing? I was working in cafés mostly. So I decided to go back to university when I was 29. It was quite a long time since I graduated so I lost confidence to look for a job in my field, with no experience in the field and no vocabulary as well.

I looked at what was available, at what was quite similar to what I had done back home so that I could get to masters straight away – and I found geotechnical engineering, which I did a little bit of as a part of my course back home. So I went back to do more engineering specialisation and it was really good. It actually worked. I got in simply because I had a masters already in a quite similar field.

When I was about to finish my course I started looking for a job. Obviously it’s hard times now. Bridges got in touch and said that they run a work shadowing programme to help refugees get experience with a company. I went for the interview with Amey and I got the chance to stay with them in the geotechnical department. I started straight away after graduating. I didn’t even officially graduate yet when I started. It went pretty smooth from the moment I decided to go back to university. I think I am in a nice position right now, finally getting a job in my field and personally, life is good as well.