Shania, Cowrie Foundation Scholarship recipient

Widening participation in higher education

Shania is a first year Biomedical Sciences student and a recipient of the Cowrie Foundation Scholarship. The Scholarship enables Black British students from socio-economically challenged backgrounds to attend leading UK universities by providing financial support, as well as mentorship, role models, and resilience programmes. This is Shania’s story.

I always planned to continue into higher education and chose to study at Newcastle University because of the PARTNERS programme.

When I was applying to university, I hadn’t actually visited Newcastle at all. I just put it down as an option purely because of the course and the broad variety of modules available to study. But when I completed the summer school as part of the PARTNERS programme, I really liked the city and found everyone to be really welcoming.

I’m enjoying taking part in the extracurricular activities available, I play netball for ACS and for Bio Sci Society and I’m part of the First Aid Society too. I also tutor students in Maths, English and Science in my spare time and I'm starting training for St John Ambulance.

Receiving the Cowrie Foundation Scholarship means I don’t have to stress about money as much. It has helped with my living expenses, to purchase coursebooks, and also my netball kit. Without the scholarship, I would have been relying on my mum and my sister, because my mum is a single parent. I don’t have to worry about that aspect now, as the scholarship covers everything that I need.

If others are in a position to help students like myself, I would definitely encourage them to support in any way that they can because it really does make a difference to students. It allows them to stress about what they actually need to stress about during their studies, rather than the other stuff that can’t be helped.

When I graduate, I would like to study a master’s degree in Physician Associate Studies so that I can work in hospitals. In the meantime, I'm hoping to do an internship in a hospital during one of the summer breaks.