Ashbourne’s aspirational students take the lead
Ashbourne’s university-style approach helps build independent and aspirational students who have the ambition and ability to seize powerful initiatives. Former student, Chiazor Tracy Nwokoma, is a superb example.
I am grateful to have experienced an environment like Ashbourne that has continued to impact my growth and development in all spheres of life.
Tracy graduated from Ashbourne with A*AAA swiftly followed by First Class Honours in Biomedical Sciences at Westminster University. She then undertook a Masters in Global Health Policy at the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE). It was here that she and colleagues won first prize in the LSE Programme for African Leadership (PfAL).
The PfAL is a tailored leadership and networking programme available to post-graduate students of African descent within LSE. It was set up to empower a new generation of leaders to promote best practices of economic and social development in their organisations and countries.
With a prospective £30,000 budget, Tracy and team developed an educational project focused on tackling dyslexia in sub-Saharan Africa, specifically in Nairobi, Kenya. The short film, Soma, they proposed to create aimed to close the gap between children affected by dyslexia and public understanding and awareness. Children with special educational needs (SEN) in this region are often faced with a lack of equitable educational access and inadequate diagnostics, management and practice, due in part to the stigmatisation of educational needs as incompetence.
Tracy was inspired to address the issue of dyslexia having spent the previous few years as an academic mentor at Ashbourne and during her time at the college as a student. She recognised that fellow students with SEN received the high levels of personalised academic and practical support from the college to achieve the best outcomes as she had. This had a profound impact on Tracy, who attributes her contribution to the project as a result of the experience she gained at the college.
Leadership is creating an environment that allows others to grow and my time at Ashbourne set the precedence for my growth within the field of education.
In her role as deputy Head Girl and Editor of the Ashbourne magazine, Tracy built up her leadership, literary and project management skills. And she ascribes her desire to help others, both practically and academically as a near-peer tutor, to the mentorship culture promoted at the college.
Tracy has also achieved academic success in her scientific endeavours, the foundations for which, particularly in biology, she offers credit to Ashbourne. As part of her undergraduate thesis in Biomedical Sciences Tracy co-authored a scientific paper published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology.
Tracy is now an associate at JP Morgan as a UX writer for Chase UK. The bank employs a diversity of professionals across different fields with a view to develop people-focused products that deal with a wide range of real-world problems.
Find out more about individual attention and support at Ashbourne offered to all of its students.