Growing up, Jess McCoy, 24, didn’t think they would be able to go to university. “Being from a working-class background, the only thing I was told about university was that it was a lot of money,” they say. No one from McCoy’s family had been to university before them and, as they suffer from some invisible health conditions that result in fatigue as one of the biggest side effects, they weren’t sure their A-levels would hit the mark.
“I had planned to get a job or join a branch of the military,” McCoy, who is originally from Gateshead, says. “At the time, I just thought I’m not smart enough for university.”
But that changed when they were given the opportunity to do a summer placement working in a lab at Northumbria University through the Nuffield Research Placement outreach scheme. “I was identifying pollen grains from honey, so I could see what flowers the bees were visiting to collect nectar – and I loved it,” they say. “It was eye-opening to see how universities actually work and to meet the people who do science.”
McCoy excelled during their work placement, which took place half-way through their A-levels. “I thought, I know what I’m good at now.” With their confidence boosted, and able to use the work they did to form part of their university application, as an Extended Project Qualification, they applied to study physical geography at Northumbria and were offered a place.
“I was ecstatic to get in,” says McCoy, whose academic journey has since taken them through undergraduate and postgraduate study, to a point where they are now working on a Natural Environment Research Council-funded PhD at the university, under the One Planet doctoral training programme.
The north-east of England has one of the lowest levels of university participation in the UK, with 33% of 18-year-olds going to university in 2020, compared with a national average of 38%.
Some 40% of the students at Northumbria University come from low-participation backgrounds, far more than at most other research-intensive universities, and well over half of its intake comes from the local area. “We’re a research-intensive university that serves a fundamentally different population of students,” says Prof Andy Long, the university’s vice-chancellor and chief executive.
For students without a family history of higher education, going to university could be seen as an obstacle. They may face financial challenges or even feel that university isn’t an option for someone from their background.
In fact, Long himself went to a local comprehensive, and was the first in his family to go to university. “I understand what it feels like to join people who have different life circumstances to you, and I certainly understand why university was transformative for me.”
Northumbria wants to encourage young people from all backgrounds to apply to university. “We work with a lot of schools and colleges across the north-east,” says Long. “We have a number of engagement opportunities and supported-entry schemes, and different pathways including our foundation years and degree apprenticeships. But it’s not good enough to just have routes in – we’ve got to make sure we’re supporting students so that they succeed. Everyone should have equal access to higher education and equal chances of success for graduates. It shouldn’t be based on family circumstances, networks, or prior experience,” he says.
“Higher education plays a hugely important role – for many young people, it’s the single thing that’s going to transform their lives.”
Last year, the university launched its Social Mobility Impact report to demonstrate the difference it is making. It has created a pipeline of support for potential students, with outreach to schools, and guidance with university applications through initiatives such as the NU Entry programme. The support continues once the students start university. It also provides placements, internships and work experience, and the university has formed partnerships with regional employers in the private and public sectors.
This work is helping to transform the whole region. Northumbria University’s role in continuing to shift the dial on social mobility is “absolutely crucial”, says former education secretary Justine Greening, who is chair of the Purpose Coalition, which brings together business leaders to drive change, and who helped develop the report.
“I think what’s interesting about Northumbria is that it proves you can be a research-intensive university that has a huge footprint in the research agenda, but that doesn’t have to come at the expense of being brilliant at widening participation,” Greening says. “It has done both of those things hugely successfully and I think that’s fantastic for the north-east region.
“It’s an example that every university should be looking at.”
For McCoy, their summer placement at the university has transformed their life. Initially, they found university to be a shock. “It was a bit overwhelming at first,” they say. But before long they settled in. “The university was really supportive and made me feel at home. I have a few issues with my health and the university was able to accommodate for that. Staff here are really approachable.”
In this environment, McCoy has been able to thrive. They made friends and ended up co-running a society. Academically, McCoy has excelled. They have become a published academic author, and are now undertaking a PhD, working with the supervisor who offered them that original crucial work placement. They’re also part of a research group examining the impact of past climate change on fossil fungi across the world, working alongside leading researchers across the globe. “My dream is to become a university lecturer,” they say. “I love the research and the teaching.”
On top of working hard in the lab, McCoy goes into schools and talks to pupils about the benefits of university and about their research in palaeontology. “The reason I do it is because my supervisor did outreach work and got me interested,” they say. If it wasn’t for that, they say, they may never have ended up going to university. “I didn’t know about the opportunities out there and that scientists are normal people. But once I knew, I set my goal, and I’ve loved it.”
McCoy wants to spread the word to other young people from working-class backgrounds. “I say to them: ‘You’re cleverer than you think you are.’
“If you’ve got an interest, take it as far as you can – I grew up thinking I could never do science, but now I study it as part of my PhD.”
For more information visit Northumbria University’s clearing hub
