Rebecca enrols on degree course 'for fun' - and ends it as a jeweller!

Having gained her first degree at the age of 55 and celebrated her 2:1 during last month’s Graduation Ceremony in York Minster, Rebecca’s work can be seen and bought in the Fabrication Gift Shop on Coney Street.

She also showcases her items at York Open Studios, as well as on Instagram.

Rebecca now specialises as an eco jeweller, working with recycled silver and adding colour using enamel and sea glass.

On her unexpected vocational turn, she said: “I did a lot of things after leaving school and ended up being a Steiner Waldorf kindergarten teacher for 13 years. Steiner schools are wonderful places, but I just wanted to do something else, and I wanted that to be something creative, so I thought the 3D Creative Practice course was tailor-made for me and I really enjoyed it.

“I think I might have chosen a Fine Art degree in my younger days, but I probably wouldn’t quite have been good enough. I am creative, though, and I also liked all the things we explored on the course, like ceramics, woodwork and metalwork and I did the course for fun to be honest.

“I didn’t expect that I was going to make a vocation out of it, but I specialised in jewellery and I think I can now say that I’m a jeweller! That has been an added bonus and my brother says I have reinvented myself. 

“I’m selling my own jewellery now and it feels amazing and is something that I thought would never happen to me. At my age, I’m not looking for a mega hardcore career, but I’m really happy to be a jeweller for as long as it lasts and I’m still learning masses all the time.” 

Rebecca left school with two O Levels in Art and Humanities but always felt she would like to enrol on a Higher Education course at some point in her life.

“I wanted to do a degree when I was younger, but I had hippy parents and I’m a bit of a free spirit too, so life took me in other directions, and I never got around to doing one until now,” she explained. “I have educated myself ever since leaving school, but had never done a degree before, so it feels fantastic to get my first degree at 55 and I wanted a 2:1, so I’m very pleased with that.”

Rebecca also regards College as a welcoming environment for students of all ages wanting to return to education.

“Having the University Centre was really good because it was a separate bit to the College,” she explained. “I don’t think the 16 and 17-year-olds really wanted to hang about with me and vice-versa.

“For anybody my age who is thinking of doing a degree course at York College, I’d say absolutely do it. If you’re 18, it might be that you want to go to somewhere like Manchester or Liverpool, but I just wanted to cycle across the Knavesmire from my house and I thought it was brilliant to be able to go to a college on my doorstep where I could do a degree.

“We also had a very small cohort, which was brilliant because we got so much individual attention. As somebody who has been out of education for a while, that was good for me and helped with my dissertation for example.”

Despite feeling fully supported by her tutors, Rebecca was pushed out of her comfort zone too and propelled into the 21st century by her own admission on the course that is supported by the Yorkshire & Humber Institute of Technology and part of our York School of Art offering.

“Technology was my biggest challenge on the course,” she reflected. “Steiner schools aren’t really big on digital technology, but the course pushed me into the 21st century, which needed to happen.

“The tutors are very kind and nurturing, though, and the one-to-one attention you get is excellent. My two daughters have done degrees with nowhere near the same level of individual attention and who wouldn’t want one-to-one tutorials for nearly an hour at times? That was a real benefit.”

Rebecca added that the standard of College’s facilities and equipment, along with access to materials, helped her prosper during her studies, too.

“There are so many different workshops with all kinds of amazing equipment in them,” she enthused. “A lot of materials are also provided, which I hear that, on quite a lot of the creative degrees, you don’t get anymore.

“As a jeweller, for example, if I wanted a sheet of copper, I could get one, so you get quite well catered for material wise. The tutors would sometimes ask us what we wanted to order. 

“They maybe would not have ordered us big sheets of silver and gold, but most things were made available to us in small doses!”

Having attended evening classes in the past and once worked for a friend in a small shop called the Bead Hive behind York Minster, Rebecca had experimented with jewellery making in the past but mainly beading techniques, which she grew frustrated with when items fell apart quite quickly.

She, therefore, welcomed the opportunity to enhance her soldering skills at College, but pointed out that she could have equally gone down a different creative pathway on the course and been fully prepared for an alternative professional route. 

“Jewellery is great because you only need a small space to have a studio at home,” she explained. “But I could just have easily gone into ceramics with the tuition we received It would just mean that I’d have needed a bigger workshop and things like a kiln.”

To learn more about our BA (Hons) 3D Creative Practice course, click here

For further details of our full York School of Art provision, please click here

Information on our Institute of Technology courses can be found here

Our next Open Event is on Thursday 7th November when tutors will be on hand to discuss all our courses. You can reserve a place here