On Monday 7th September, I stood on the stage in Lincoln Cathedral and delivered the Alumni Address at the University of Lincoln’s graduation ceremony. I’ve been in the cathedral for a graduation more times than most people: three times collecting my own certificates, and some more on the staff side as a lecturer. This one was different.
You can watch the full speech here. (Skip to 59:20).
Where it started: 2015
My first graduation was in 2015, at the end of my undergraduate degree.
I’d achieved First Class Honours in my Undergraduate Degree, and my results earned me a scholarship for my Master’s. This was a really big deal at the time as there was no funding for postgraduate degrees back then. Without the scholarship, I probably wouldn’t have been able to afford it.
During my time as an undergraduate, I was, unsurprisingly, a massive nerd. I was a school and college representative and also I founded the English Society and served as its President. If I am being completely honest, the English Society was a social group dedicated to the sesh with some literature attached, but it brought people together and it got English students talking to each other outside seminars, which the department was really happy about.
As a result of this, I was given a special award for ‘Contributions to English’, and the department asked me to deliver the Student Vote of Thanks speech. At that time it was one of the proudest moments of my life. Standing up in the cathedral to speak on behalf of my cohort, in front of my whole family was a really special moment.
Why I never really left
I went on to do my Master’s and then my PhD at Lincoln, graduating again in 2024, and I lectured in the English department along the way.
I’ve stayed close to the university since finishing, partly through the alumni department and partly through friends and former colleagues in the English department. Every so often I go back to talk to the current cohort about what I do.
The reason I keep saying yes is simple. Very few English graduates go down the self-employment route, and almost nobody tells them it’s an option. The careers conversation for English students tends to focus on teaching, publishing, and journalism. Nobody said to me at 20 that the skills I was being taught were the exact skills a business would pay for, and that I could sell them directly rather than through an employer. I worked that out by accident, purely because I needed to cover my rent and pay my PhD tuition fees.
So when the university asked me to deliver this year’s Alumni Address, it was not a hard decision. It was the same conversation I have been having with small groups of English students for years, just with a much bigger audience, a cathedral, and another excuse to wear my floppy bonnet.
Full circle
In 2015, I stood in that cathedral as a student thanking the department. In 2026, I stood there as the alumna the department had invited back.
None of the route between those two moments was planned out. I did not set out to run four businesses. I literally set out to pay my rent and course fees, and I used what Lincoln had taught me to do it. Everything since has been the same move repeated: pick up the tools, do the work, see where it goes.
To the class of 2026: huge congratulations.
And to the University of Lincoln, and to the English department in particular: thank you for asking me to speak. It meant a lot to me. And I’m sorry we exploited the open bar afterwards.
