19 minute read
Education Corner Podcast Interview
EDUCATION CORNER PODCAST
EDUCATION CORNER PODCAST INTERVIEW WITH
EX CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY GRADUATE AND WINNER OF THE OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT AWARD AT THE HOUSE OF LORDS FOR UK STUDENT SOCIAL MOBILITY
Victoria Ayodeji
Victoria was the second person from her school (The Petchey Academy in Hackney) to ever get into Cambridge. During her time studying there, she served as the BAME Officer for her college and has gone on to win prestigious awards such as the Outstanding Achievement Award at the House of Lords for the UK Student Social Mobility Awards and she was selected as one of Powerful Media’s Top 100 Future Leaders. Since, she has become one of the global winners of the McKinsey & Company Achievement Award, is the first Chair of the Career Ready Youth Advisory Board and is one of the members of the Sutton Trust Alumni Advisory Board, working closely with the trust to advise on their social mobility work.
Victoria speaks about her experiences as a Black student from a disadvantaged background and her determination to overcome the many challenges she faced from her school years through to her gaining a place at Cambridge, despite the many difficulties that she faced. She offers advice to other young people and offers a positive and valuable insight into the many charities and support networks that are available and how having resilience and determination can lead to success despite the many challenges that young people may feel that they face.
To start with, we are particularly interested in the work that you have done with the Sutton Trust Alumni Advisory Board, could you tell us a little more about what this involves and some of the things that you have done?
Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I came across the Sutton Trust by chance when I was researching free charities and opportunities in Year 12, which was around October or November a few years ago. I realised they had the Sutton Trust Summer School programme, which is a programme they run with different universities across the UK, like Cambridge and Durham, where students in Year 12 can gain an insight into life at university by
Victoria Ayodeji
attending taster lectures. That’s how I got involved with Sutton Trust. In 2016 I attended the summer school at Queen’s College in Cambridge, studying Geography. Then, five years later, I graduated from Queen’s College, Cambridge, with a degree in Geography. So, the charity had a huge impact on my journey to university, which is why I decided to get involved with the Alumni Advisory Board. What we do as alumni is work with Sutton Trust to ensure we add the young voice to the work that we do. For example, if there’s any research they want to publish, and they want it to be looked at from a young person’s perspective, we can help with that, or if they’re looking for any of us to speak about our journeys in the press or at conferences.
Through the Sutton Trust, I spoke at the Forage Global International Conference, which is a conference attended by people across the world. The topic was about education and access to work opportunities, so I got to share my journey along with two other alumni, so there are a variety of public speaking opportunities available through Sutton Trust. Also, as a group, we can decide on next steps. The previous alumni board started the Alumni Festival, where you can bring together alumni from the programme and provide information about different personal development skills, training, networking opportunities, and insight into different careers, like banking, law, and the creative sectors. They do a lot, and I’m very glad I get to be part of the board with the Sutton Trust, and also chair the Career Ready Youth Advisory Board, because I think it is so important to have that Gen Z youth voice, especially when you’re working to serve young people in particular.
How do you feel they helped you with your application to Cambridge?
As I did the summer school, I got to see whether or not Cambridge was for me. You get to live in the halls and attend lectures in the same halls that the students sit in, which allowed me to imagine myself at that university and see whether or not I wanted to apply. It definitely gave me confidence, but, beyond the Sutton Trust, there was a variety of other organisations that played a big role in my personal development during my teen years and early twenties. Career Ready, IntoUniversity, Target Oxbridge, and SEO London, for example,
TURN TO PAGE 62 to read about Black History Month “Career Ready, IntoUniversity, Target Oxbridge, and SEO London, for example, are all social mobility charities that work with less advantaged young people and help them access applying to university, apprenticeships, internship experiences, and knowledge about different careers. They do really impactful work.”
are all social mobility charities that work with less advantaged young people and help them access applying to university, apprenticeships, internship experiences, and knowledge about different careers. They do really impactful work. For a lot of the young people they work with, I don’t think the calibre of opportunities they get access to would be the same if they didn’t have access to the charities.
How did you find out about the charities?
Similarly to how I came across Sutton Trust on Google, I also discovered Target Oxbridge through Google. Other search engines do exist! But yes, I found these charities mostly through research online. I actually came across IntoUniversity through Sutton Trust. Once you finish a programme, you receive an email saying: “There’s a charity that can provide you with Oxbridge interview practice” which is how I came across IntoUniversity. I applied to Career Ready through my school, and when I got to university, I came across another organisation who do amazing work, called upReach, who run the Student Social Mobility Awards. I came across them on LinkedIn during my first year of university when I saw a post about them, so then I decided to apply for the programme. So, a lot of proactivity and personal research helped me discover these charities.
In an article you mentioned a brilliant quote by Marian Wright Edelman, the African-American writer, who says: “You can’t be what you can’t see.” Do you feel that you are beginning to see more people from more challenging socio-economic backgrounds in esteemed universities such as Cambridge? »
Resilience
Compared to twenty years ago and ten years ago, definitely. I think the university and its colleges have done a lot of work over the last five to ten years when it comes to widening participation. I recently got involved with a social media campaign with Cambridge where I was able to share my journey. In my opinion, there is obviously so much more that could be done, but it is also extremely important to recognise the progress that has been made thus far and use that confidence going forward to ensure further change is brought about. Even when I first got to university, it was more diverse than I thought it would ever be. Like I mentioned earlier, it is so important to realise that more change can be made, but also recognise the work the university has done so far. Beyond that, it is important to recognise the work students have done: there are so many different student organisations that have gotten involved with activism, and there’s a lot of grassroots activism work students are doing alongside their degrees to ensure that Cambridge is a more welcoming place. Whether that’s networks like FLY, which was set up by three amazing women a few years ago, who have actually released a book called A FLY Girl’s Guide to University. Or whether it’s Ore and Chelsea, who were the President and Vice President of the Cambridge African-Caribbean Society. They did a lot of work when it came to access, especially when it came to students from an African, Gambian background.
So, I think it’s also really important to acknowledge young people and students who have been putting in the work to ensure change takes place. That’s what inspired me to get involved with it, I knew how impactful it was to see people from a similar background to myself occupying different spaces. That’s how I got involved with my public speaking, speaking at schools across the country and sharing my journey. I became a student ambassador for the university, so I was speaking at summer schools and different events, where state school students would come to Cambridge. There is a lot of power in sharing your authentic journey, because you never know who you’ll inspire along the way.
How was your experience studying at Cambridge?
Overall, it was a good experience and I’m glad I went. I studied Geography and the course was really interesting, and I met some really amazing academics. I am happy I went to King’s College as well because of the people I met, from the porters and receptionists up to the different academics and the Director of Studies. It was a really good, interesting experience, and the fact I was able to get involved with work around accessing education and work opportunities definitely allowed me to build my passion.
Beyond that, I got involved with new things, like DJ-ing, which I never thought would happen! It was a new thing I managed to pick up at university. At university in general, or even just going through your youth, as it were, you will be exposed to new opportunities, so I think it’s so important to have an open mind in regard to meeting people and trying not to have too many preconceived notions of what people or certain activities will be like, because I think the exciting part of life exists on the opposite side of your comfort zone.
Do you feel that there are ways that universities could raise more awareness of the different networks and facilities of support that are in place? What do you feel could be done to further support children from diverse and challenged backgrounds?
I think visibility is one thing. I worked as a consultant for a university on a gap year, and I was helping them create their very first widened participation scheme. That was a really interesting experience because I think a lot of it is to do with visibility. If you’re having a programme, for example, how visible is it? If you want to target students from a certain background, how can you make sure you’re getting into those spaces? Are you perhaps advertising it to certain schools that may not necessarily contain your target demographic? If you need to go to schools on a wider basis, are you trying to reach them and get those students to apply? I think a lot of it takes a lot of research, being very particular in regard to knowing what students you want to work with, but also fundamentally giving them a voice.
It’s very important to have young people from the background you’re trying to work with and perhaps having alumni or older students whom they can ask: “When you were 14, 15, 16 years old, what did you want to see?” I think once you have that understanding, it makes it a bit easier. Beyond that, I think social media can be very powerful. Like I mentioned, I worked with a Cambridge social media campaign, and quite a considerable amount of young people are on social media, whether that be TikTok, YouTube, or Snapchat. I think it’s really important to think about how you, as a university, organisation, or institution, harness social media to engage with the young people you want to serve. Beyond that, I think it’s also important to give the grassroots student activists or advocates the platform to highlight their work. In my first or second year of university, Cambridge had a very short series where they showcased different student societies, like the African-Caribbean
Determination
Society and the Hip Hop Society, societies which you might not necessarily think existed at Cambridge. So I think it’s really important to give a voice to different organisations, because visibility is so important.
You have said that taking a gap year was “one of the best decisions” you have ever made. Could you tell us a little more about that?
This is technically my second gap year. I liked my first one so much, I decided to take another! I think it was one of the best decisions because I had so many different access opportunities I didn’t even know existed. For some context, I was the second person from my school to go to Cambridge. But during my gap year, when I was interning at a consulting firm or a charity, even though I might’ve been the youngest person in the room, all of a sudden, my colleagues or their husbands or siblings might’ve gone to Cambridge.
So, when I started university, yes I was the only person from my school who had gone in my school year, but the network I was able to build during my gap year meant I felt more equipped in regard to what to expect from the university on the social side. Beyond that, I was able to go to California in the summer of my gap year, which was a great opportunity to speak with different artists in the area and really explore a new country. I recently went to America on an exchange programme with the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Embassy, which was really amazing. And I was in America this summer, and when I landed in Washington, D.C., I received a notification that it was four years previous that I had been in California, which was a nice fullcircle moment. But I think there is this stigma that only certain kinds of students do gap years, like students who have parents that can fund them to go to Thailand, or something. Of course there’s nothing wrong with that, but for a lot of students who don’t come from that background, it might put them off. But there is so much to be gained from taking a gap year, like looking for internships, volunteering abroad, or starting a new hobby or business.
On LinkedIn, a student reached out to me about doing a gap year, saying: “Thank you so much for inspiring me, because I was on the fence about doing a gap year, but now I know it can be so helpful to do.” So, I think if you are hesitant about the stigma of a gap year, make sure you have a plan of what you want to do during the year, and keep pushing forward with what you want to do fundamentally in life. Because, at the end of the day, when you’re »
Seeking support
older, you’ll only look back at the regrets you had. So, if there’s anything you want to do that might be different, while it takes a lot of confidence to go off the beaten path, your older self will be a lot more grateful that you did it. So, taking a gap year was definitely really, really impactful for my personal development.
Do you feel that schools could perhaps work harder to be more encouraging of their students with their university applications, supporting children’s ambitions instead of furthering the idea that a student ‘has to have perfect grades’ in order to apply to esteemed universities?
I think it’s quite important to be very holistic. I have mentored about 40 students to get into Russell Group universities and about 15 to get into Oxbridge and whenever I mentor them, I always tell them that it’s important to think about your life and this university application holistically. Yes, grades are very important, but that being said, you want to come across as someone who is both interesting and interested. I think you gain so much in life beyond the lecture hall and beyond the classroom, so I think it’s really important to ensure students are well-equipped to be fantastic global citizens, and a lot of that takes place beyond the school gates, so we need to encourage young people to access opportunities.
For example, when I was in school I came across the Jack Petchey Foundation, a charity that helped me a lot with my personal development. Through them, when I was 16, I got to speak in front of 2,000 people a few weeks before my GCSEs, which gave me so much confidence and is the reason I’m now such a good public speaker. So, I think there’s a lot to be said about the skills you gain beyond school, and while education is important, it’s crucial to ensure young people are picking up different hobbies like music, sports, or social activism in
the local community. It teaches young people really important skills that will help them, like communication and negotiation. If I didn’t get involved with things beyond my academic grades, I don’t think I would be the resilient, tenacious person I am today. Of course, in the grand scheme of things, there’s issues around funding and access to opportunities, so there’s a lot to be discussed around that, but, to answer your question, I definitely think it’s important to encourage young people to think beyond grades.
Are there any future projects in the upcoming months that you would like to talk about or look forward to working on?
When I was in America, one of the takeaways I got from speaking with young people in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Washington D.C., Florida, and Detroit was the power of a strong message. This year, during my gap year, I also interned in Public Relations and at a social media agency, and these experiences were all really impactful because they taught me the importance of storytelling. So, going forward, I’m thinking a lot about how I could share my journey utilising social media, perhaps, because it can be really impactful.
Unfortunately, there is a lot of research about how social media is negative for young people because of who they might follow, but I think it’s really important to ensure that you’re cultivating your social media feeds so you can be inspired by the people you’re following, rather than comparing yourself to them. So, I think I want to find a way to share my voice through social media, because a lot of people have encouraged
University of Cambridge
me to do it and I haven’t got round to it yet, so I think that’s a project I’m trying to focus on.
What are your hopes for the future in terms of EDI within the education sector?
Just the continued integration of young people’s voices. So, if you’re working with young people or a marginalised community, just ensure that that voice is integrated into the work and the practice that you have, because, fundamentally, that’s the community you’re serving. That’s definitely an area I think would be useful going forward, having that continued focus. Beyond that, I think it would be really interesting to continue strengthening bonds between business and society. Also, something that needs bridging is the gap between schools and employers, because when I was speaking to schools, I’d tell students about LinkedIn or tell them: “I just spoke to this person and they gave me an internship, it was really easy.” A lot of the students were very shocked.
So I think there’s a lot to be done in regard to how schools equip young people for the next stage of their lives, whether that’s through an apprenticeship or going straight into work, starting a business, going to university, whatever they want to do. Just making sure they’re very prepared for it because, unfortunately, at a lot of the schools I’ve spoken at, a lot of the students don’t feel they’re being equipped with that knowledge, and when I come in, they see it as life-changing and transformational, which I guess is a good thing for me, but a bad thing knowing there’s this massive gap. Hence why I want to focus on that social media aspect, especially if you’re an organisation that works with or tries to serve young people, how can you use social media to harness that interest?
Do you have any final words of advice for younger listeners, possibly to those hoping to apply to Oxbridge and university?
I have three main pieces of advice. The first piece of advice is to get support. I mentioned a variety of charities, and you can also follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram to discover more, because I post about different organisations that so many young people don’t know about. Definitely go and get support from these organisations. There’s a lot of free advice out there that can help you on your journey, which you can find even just by doing research on YouTube and Google. The second tip is to not suffer in silence, which is also related to the first piece of advice. If you need help with anything, it’s really important to go and get that assistance, even if it may be difficult at the time. The third thing, I would say, is that comparison is the thief of joy. It is very easy, especially as a young person, to compare your life to the lives of others, even adults do it! But I found that my life has flourished since I started to focus on my own personal development journey and what kind of life I want to craft for myself. Yes, you can take inspiration from other people, but you should fundamentally focus on what you want to get out of your life. Once you have that good strong understanding, it means that when you might want to take a gap year or do something that seems a bit rogue for people with your background, you can do it with confidence, because you know what you’re doing and trust your intuition. You can also follow me on my socials for more tips.
www.suttontrust.com/25th-anniversary/success-story/ victoria-ayodeji
Here’s a list of the charities/organisations that I mentioned in the podcast:
www.jackpetcheyfoundation.org.uk www.suttontrust.com https://upreach.org.uk https://targetoxbridge.co.uk www.seo-london.org/, https://careerready.org.uk www.socialmobility.org.uk IntoUniversity InsideUni AimCambridge
Connect with Victoria:
LinkedIn: Victoria Ayodeji www.linkedin.com/in/victoria-ayodeji TikTok & Instagram: @navigatewithvictoria
We would like to thank Victoria Ayodeji for giving up her time to speak to us.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE PODCAST
