Becoming a Student Again: A New Beginning, but Not from Zero

Before coming to the UK, I had around eight years of professional experience in engineering and project management. My last job before starting this new adventure was at Unilever, in the ice cream business, where I worked in the engineering department as a Project Coordinator.

After several years of working, I decided it was time to do something different. I wanted to update the knowledge and skills I had developed during university and throughout my professional career. However, I also had a very personal motivation: I wanted to experience living in Europe, discover a different culture and see what it would be like to build a new life in another country.

I chose the UK and the University of Leeds because I found a programme that combined exactly the two areas I was looking for: Environmental Engineering and Project Management. However, making this decision also meant leaving behind, at least for a while, the professional life I already knew and becoming a student again.

Leaving Mexico made me feel a little sad, but when I arrived in Leeds, this feeling quickly changed into excitement. Everything was new: the city, the university, the language, the people and even the small things in everyday life. I was starting a completely different stage of my life, and I was doing it in the UK.

Going back to university after so many years of working was one of my first challenges. I had to get used to attending classes, studying, completing assignments and preparing for exams again. I also had to adapt to university life and to studying with younger people and classmates with different experiences and cultural backgrounds.

There were moments when it was not easy. I especially remember December. The days were getting shorter, the weather was becoming colder and, at the same time, I had several assignments and exams to prepare for. It was one of those moments when I asked myself if everything was becoming too much.

Then, one of the most important moments of my year arrived. I received my results from the first term and realised that I had done very well. For me, this was proof that I was able to adapt to academic life again after being away from university for many years. At the same time, my life in Leeds was also changing. I had made new friends, started travelling and was slowly building a life in a place that had been completely unknown to me only a few months before.

Now that I am finishing this experience, I can see how much I have changed. Professionally, I have significantly improved my English, developed new technical skills, become more disciplined and learned how to study and work in a different environment.

However, some of the most important changes happened outside the university. I learned how to live independently in another country, adapt to a different culture, connect with people from different backgrounds and build new friendships far from home.

Becoming a student again after eight years of professional experience taught me something that I want to remember after finishing my Master's: starting again does not mean starting from zero. I came to the UK with everything I had learned during my career, but this experience showed me how much more I could still learn, both professionally and personally.

- Laura Edith