Having struggled with undiagnosed dyslexia, dyspraxia and discalculia all his life and leaving school without full qualifications, Brooke Johnson applied to Birkbeck’s part-time BSc in Geology to pursue his ambition after disheartening experiences working in a call centre.

Brooke, a working-class student from Newcastle, excelled at Birkbeck once he got the diagnosis and support he needed, graduating with first class honours in 2015.

Since then, he has gone on to post-doctoral study and tutoring in earth sciences at the University of Oxford and has volunteered extensively with widening access programmes to help other working-class students develop a passion for geology and get into higher education.

He is now a sedimentary geology researcher at the University of Liège, Belgium.