Two students who grew up in Croydon and Wandsworth are set to be honoured at a national awards ceremony next week.
Alessandro Olivieri and Faysal Yusuf will be celebrated at the eighth annual Student Social Mobility Awards on 8 July, held at Drapers’ Hall in London and organised by social mobility charity upReach.
The awards come at a difficult moment for graduates, with tougher competition for jobs and a freeze on student loan repayment thresholds prompting many to question whether a degree still pays off.
Olivieri, who has been nominated for the Law Award, said: “I was the first in my family to attend university, and the world of higher education was one that I knew little about when I first started attending university open days.”
Olivieri grew up receiving free school meals and was the first in his family to go to university, and had to rely on his college’s careers advisors to get through the UCAS process.
He went on to study law at the University of East Anglia, working part-time jobs throughout his degree while securing internships at law firms Broadfield UK and Macfarlanes.
Olivieri was later diagnosed with ADHD in his second year, after which he said he became more confident in both himself and his education.
Science Award nominee Yusuf was permanently excluded from school as a teenager and completed his secondary education at a pupil referral unit, which offered limited subjects and little career guidance.
He later discovered he had dyslexia and dyscalculia, conditions which went undiagnosed for years.
The Exeter University student said: “For much of my education I was often told that I wasn’t trying hard enough.”
Financial pressures nearly kept him out of higher education altogether as the cost of university made him question whether attending was even possible, but a scholarship from investment firm Marshall Wace changed that.
He is now finishing a neuroscience degree at the University of Exeter, having completed an industrial placement year at pharmaceutical company GSK.
Yusuf said: “Experiences like mine are not unique, and financial barriers remain a real obstacle for many young people from similar backgrounds.
“That is why social mobility initiatives and access to support are so important … I hope my story can reach a younger version of myself out there – someone who feels overlooked, underestimated, or limited by their circumstances and remind them that anything is possible.”
upReach currently supports more than 3,200 students nationally with one-to-one career guidance, including over 1,300 in Greater London.
This year’s awards are supported by Bank of America, Slaughter and May, the Royal Academy of Engineering, G-Research and iQ Student Accommodation, with sponsorship covering travel and accommodation costs for nominees travelling from across the UK.
Featured image: Iain Watson via Flickr
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