Manuel Perez
I grew up in France and have mixed emotions about Primary School. A teacher at Secondary School was kind to me though and my memories of this experience are much better. I left school at 13 with few qualifications and when my family returned to live in Spain I started an apprenticeship as an electro-mechanic, which I did for the next ten years. After I was made redundant I moved to Britain in 1994 and started getting back into education straight away by learning English.
I gained a certificate in English then did a SVQ in computing at night classes at Madras College in St Andrews. My English was still not very good and I had to convince the job centre to allow me to go to College, but in 1999 I successfully finished an HNC in Art and Design at Elmwood College. After gaining my HNC I got a job with St Andrews University first as a cleaner then as a janitor. At the time Prince William was studying there and once I was asked to stand at the back of the lecture theatre for additional security. It was the first time I had followed a lecture all the way through and the lecturer David Regis was sensational. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to start a degree myself – I thought ‘why not’ and in 2002 I started on the evening degree course. I got my MA in 2006 and now work as a facility care assistant at the Dalgairn Centre.
If I can do it, anybody can do it – you can do it too!
Studying and working full-time was very tough. My proficiency at English made things harder and the demands on my lifestyle were enormous as I found that my time was always very short. But learning has given me a taste for more complex studies and I would now like to become a teacher of modern languages.