Meet the Open Library of Humanities team

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The six members of the Open Library of Humanities Team in different squares on Microsoft Teams

The Open Library of Humanities team

Tell us who you are, and where you sit in the Birkbeck, University of London departmental structure?

The Open Library of Humanities (OLH) is an award-winning, academic-led, gold open-access publisher with no author-facing charges. OLH was launched in 2015 and has been operating as an independent charity until May 2021, which is when the platform merged with Birkbeck, University of London.

We are based in the College’s Department of English, Theatre and Creative Writing, and it’s Centre for Technology and Publishing. We’re proud to hold a Coko Foundation Open Publishing Award, an AOP Digital Publishing Award, and to have been Highly Commended at the ALPSP Awards for Innovation in Publishing.

How many staff are in the team?
The OLH has a team of five — soon to be six — full-time members of staff.

The team in detail:

  • Dr Rose Harris-Birtill is the Acting Director and Managing Editor of the Open Library of Humanities, and is head of editorial at OLH. She is also the Editor of our flagship journal, OLH.
  • Paula Clemente Vega is the Marketing Officer for the Open Library of Humanities where she is in charge of memberships and of increasing the visibility of the OLH through outreach, marketing and advocacy.
  • Dr Eleanor Careless is the Editorial Officer for the Open Library of Humanities where she oversees editorial processes and production.
  • Andy Byers is a Senior Publishing Technology Developer at the Birkbeck’s Centre for Technology and Publishing. He leads development of the Janeway journal management system project.
  • Mauro Sanchez is a Senior Publishing Technology Developer at Birkbeck’s Centre for Technology and Publishing. He is in charge of managing development processes and operations for the Janeway project.
  • The OLH was co-founded by Professor Martin Paul Eve and Dr Caroline Edwards from Birkbeck’s Department of English, Theatre and Creative Writing.

What are the key functions of the team?
Our mission at the OLH is to support and extend open access to scholarship in the humanities – for free, for everyone, forever. Our small but hardworking team each oversee different facets of the organisation to make this mission a reality, supporting the editors across our platform of 28 open access journals, developing and maintaining our own field-leading open-source publishing platform, and securing the funding that allows our journals to remain completely free to read and free to publish in.

The OLH operates using a consortial funding model, which means that over 300 institutions pool their resources to collectively fund our open access publishing activities, allowing us to publish scholarship without the need to charge authors or readers. Our idea is that research organisations and libraries make a relatively small voluntary contribution – often less than a single article processing charge – that, when combined, covers the costs of running a publication platform on which peer-reviewed scholarly journals can then be published as fully open access. Our dedicated Marketing Officer is in charge of working with member universities, securing the vital member support that allows us to keep running.

One of the goals of the OLH has been to flip subscription journals to open access, making previously paid-for scholarly journals completely free to read and publish in. With this model we are proud to say that the OLH has been able to expand from 7 journals in 2015 to 28 journals in 2021. A huge milestone was the development and launch of Janeway in 2017, our own field-leading innovative open-source publishing platform developed fully in-house by our talented Senior Publishing Technology Developers, which is used both by our published and funded journals, as well as by a growing number of external partner university presses. The editorial team is in charge of coordinating the academic journals published by the Open Library of Humanities, and our Director oversees the day-to-day running of the organisation.

How have you been keeping each other afloat during the pandemic?
The OLH is fully set up for remote working, which allows us to keep overheads low. As such, we worked from home before the pandemic, so in that respect, not much has changed! However, we’ve continued to work closely to support each other through a challenging year. Organising online parties and games has been what has helped cheer up our days and keep us motivated during lockdown, as well as sharing funny gifs, anecdotes, photos and pet updates!

What are your current key activities?
We recently merged with Birkbeck, University of London, which has been a huge milestone for securing the future of the organisation, and now have a new Director, Dr Rose Harris-Birtill. She stepped in to replace Professor Martin Paul Eve, who is currently on research leave until Autumn 2022.

Universities continue to join us on a weekly basis, and our Marketing Officer is always busy dealing with member universities, sending invoices and doing outreach.

With a strong supporter base, we are now in the process of expanding our team. We recently hired a talented new Editorial Officer, Dr Eleanor Careless, and are in the process of hiring a third Publishing Technology Developer to help with journal migrations to our in-house publishing platform Janeway.

What are the plans for the year ahead?
Our developers, with the help of our editorial team, are in the process of migrating most of our journals to Janeway, a sizable project due to be complete by the end of the year, and which means that these will all be published using our own in-house publishing software.

We have recently been awarded a grant of £200,000 from Arcadia, a charitable fund of Dr Lisbet Rausing and Professor Peter Baldwin, to support the innovative research and work of the Open Library of Humanities. This grant will be used to help OLH to expand and diversify its revenue sources. While the pandemic has put strain on library budgets worldwide, OLH has achieved financial stability using its innovative collective funding model. This funding will allow the Centre for Technology and Publishing to expand its Janeway services, thereby providing a second, secure, and stable revenue source for the years to come.

We also recently launched our new Jisc Collections OLH offer for UK institutions. Under this new agreement, UK universities are given the opportunity to voluntarily support us at a higher membership rate. In the coming year, this will allow us to re-open our journal flipping programme to grow our portfolio of open access journals, and make even more world-leading scholarship freely available to all.

When libraries choose to support us at the higher tiers, we will invite applications from scholarly journals currently at for-profit, subscription, and hybrid publishers to apply to join OLH, once we have suitable revenue levels. This flipping will yield benefits not only for the titles that choose to join us and convert to open access, but will also escalate pressure on other publishers to adopt models for equitable open access that allow greater knowledge sharing worldwide.

Who do you most closely work with?
We work closely with our authors, journal editors, partner presses, platform users and university presses that use Janeway to publish their journals, as well as with our 300+ member institutions, and the library open access community more generally.

Janeway is currently used by many publishers and libraries including Michigan Publishing Services, UCL Press, the Open Library of Humanities, Huddersfield University Press, Iowa State Digital Press, the University of Essex, the University of West London, and California Digital Library, which uses Janeway to host its recently launched Preprint service Eartharxiv.

Tell us something interesting about the team.
We love playing games together, and our past online parties have included virtual bomb defusal and the retro real-time strategy game Red Alert (in its open-source version, of course). During the lockdown, two of our team members completed an all-night online gaming session to raise money for charity, and one member of the team even repurposed an old TV to build their own virtual truck-driving rig, complete with steering wheel and cup holder (we’ll leave it to you to figure out who!)

Further information:

“The work placement as part of my degree course has given me the opportunity of a lifetime”

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Sarina Munro, MA Museum Cultures with Curating student, is in the midst of a work placement at the Swedenborg Society, an educational charity in central London which publishes the works of Swedish scientist, philosopher and visionary, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). In this blog, Sarina shares how she is undergoing a complete career change and explains what she is doing on her placement.

Sarina Munro

On a rainy April morning I stopped outside a beautiful bookshop that looked like it was out of a Charles Dickens novel. I walked up the side steps and entered this enchanting little gem in the heart of Bloomsbury, London. Yet, what happened was more than stepping into a bookshop – I had just stepped in through an invisible wardrobe into my very own Narnia. As I closed the bookshop door, I closed the door to the outside world – a high-octane, fast-paced, ever-instant digital world, which can sometimes feel so overwhelming and utterly consuming.

I made my way to the Gardiner Room and found myself in an amazing room with bookshelves from floor to ceiling. I stood there and did a 360-degree turn, smiling to myself because I felt like I had just walked into Tommy Lascelles’s room in The Crown. This was going to be my workplace for the next three months, under the mentorship of a Swedenborg Society librarian and archivist, Alex Murray. I was starting a work placement as a collections and archives assistant, as part of my MA Museum Cultures with Curating at Birkbeck.

I am a mature student. The first time I went to university was in the 1990s. I read English, then did a post-grad in print journalism, and went on to have a career in national newspapers and magazines, which culminated in a staff job at a national broadsheet. However, even when working on a newspaper, I would daydream about going back to university to study at Birkbeck. That daydream to study, then became a dream to pursue a whole new career in museology. When the world went into lockdown in 2020, I realised life is too short to just dream. Once on my course, I chose the work placement option, so that I could get some practical experience. I applied to the Swedenborg Society because I am a huge fan of the early feminist-activist Josephine Butler, who led the campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts of the 1860s. In my interview, I gave an impassioned speech about her work and my interest in Swedenborg Society’s Josephine Butler collection. Little did I know then that the executive director, Mr Stephen McNeilly, would give me an opportunity of a lifetime.

After my initial three weeks’ training, I was handed a folder by Mr McNeilly. It was Swedenborg Society’s Josephine Butler collection: eight letters written by Josephine to James John Garth Wilkinson – homeopath and supporter of the repeal campaign. I was tasked with transcribing and researching the letters. There was such an incredible intimacy in holding those letters, feeling them between my fingers, looking at the fading ink on the yellowish paper – and then, deciphering cursive-Victorian handwriting. On my first day, I struggled, but as each day went by, I became more and more familiar with Josephine’s writing and began to spot dates and connect them with corresponding events in Josephine’s life. It was an incredible feeling, being given the privilege of working with the collection. I felt a closeness to Josephine Butler. I also felt extremely humbled and honoured to have the responsibility of transcribing Josephine’s impassioned words and extracts from her spiritual diary.

My work placement is hands-on and inspiring. Every day I learn so much about collections, archives and the history of Emanuel Swedenborg, his work and all the prominent figures in history that he has influenced and been linked with, such as William Blake, S.T Coleridge, JJG Wilkinson and many more. Working at the Swedenborg Society has inspired me to peel back more and more layers and I have immersed myself into the esoteric, enchanting world of Swedenborgians.

The Swedenborg Museum is currently showing Swedenborg in 27 Objects, curated by Executive Director Stephen McNeilly. It is open to the public every Wednesday from 11am to 5pm. It is a wonderfully eclectic exhibition – from The Josephine Butler collection, a letter written by disability activist Helen Keller, to illustrations by William Blake. For the ghoulish, there are even Swedenborg’s body parts on display. Come and visit. Enter through the bookshop and experience your very own Narnia.

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“We were really challenged to think for ourselves.” 

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Pierre-Yves Rahari is a Partner at AlgoMe Consulting and alumnus of the Postgraduate Certificate in Coaching. This is his Birkbeck story.

Pierre-Yves smiling against a white background.

Why did you apply for the Postgraduate Certificate in Coaching Psychology? 

I started my career in Finance, working for investment managers, and was looking for a way to bridge working in a corporate setting to becoming a consultant and executive coach. I did this at work by taking on mentoring and leadership development assignments and decided that the best way to complement my training would be to study psychology. 

After completing a foundation course in psychotherapy, I began to look for an executive coaching course, but the typical format you see of learning then following a single methodology didn’t resonate with me. Birkbeck’s programme appealed as it seemed to be looking to go more in depth with students, plus the course leaders were from a psychodynamic background and active coaches themselves. 

Birkbeck’s London location was ideal for me and I liked the format of weekly classes, which meant we were fully immersed in the course for the duration of the year. 

What have been some of the highlights of the programme? 

During the course, we were really challenged to think for ourselves. The team didn’t give out a manual or tell us how to do it, but they had a magical way of getting us to think about our practice and by the end of the course we had a real understanding of what it meant to have a contract with a coaching client. I don’t think it’s an overnight thing, but gradually you find yourself listening differently when you speak to people. The framework that I use in coaching now is an extension of what we did in the course. It has prepared me well for running my own business and surviving during the pandemic. 

As a French person, I also really enjoyed being on an Anglo-Saxon style campus, surrounded by other university campuses and with coffee and book stores all around. My experience at Birkbeck was very nurturing and I look back on my time there very fondly. 

Can you tell us more about what you do now? 

I run a management consulting company called AlgoMe Consulting, which specialises in asset management. We aim to influence strategic and sustainable change in the investment management industry by helping executive boards and boards of directors strategise and successfully implement transformational projects in their firms, while improving transparency, integrity, inclusion and engagement. A lot of the work we do is with leaders and change management and people are fundamental to this process, both at an individual and team level.

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Rainbow washing: what should we think when every brand seems to support Pride Month?

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With Pride Month becoming increasingly commercialised, Dr Olivier Sibai, Lecturer in Marketing at Birkbeck, University of London, Dr Mimoun, Lecturer in Marketing at the Business School (formerly Cass), and Dr Achilleas Boukis, Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Sussex discuss how brands are engaging with the month of celebration.

A close-up of the rainbow pride-flag

It’s June again, the first heatwave has arrived, flowers are blooming, and more and more rainbow avatars appear on your social media feeds! Yes, it’s Pride Month again and brands won’t let you forget it! As everyone celebrates Pride, brands won’t stop showing their surface-level love and support to position themselves as socially progressive and increase their resonance with their younger audience.  From brands’ rainbow LinkedIn profile picture to Google Doodles, every brand and its neighbor are jumping on the occasion to demonstrate their virtue. Yet, people are not so easily fooled and criticism abounds! Between accusations of rainbow-washing, blog posts wondering whether we can escape the commercialisation of Pride, and lists of brand’s “Pride fails,” consumers show their disapproval vocally.

Our research recently published in Psychology and Marketing uncovers how consumers interpret brands’ LGBTQ+-related support and decide on whether to condemn or to approve them. We show that consumers are more likely to condemn brands as ‘woke-washers’ if they are unable to prove morally competent. Specifically, media and consumers make up their minds on the biggest corporates by assessing such performative acts of allyship through three moral criteria: sensitivity, vision, and integration.

Moral sensitivity — a brand must recognize the moral content of a situation as failure to do so is likely to damage customer satisfaction, customer-brand relations, and brand equity. For example, by posting straight characters walking over the rainbow flag, Disney has proved morally insensitive to the stigma and discrimination that LGBTQ+ individuals are still experiencing in many instances.

Moral vision — a brand must show a clear moral vision when outlining challenges to free speech that help solve problems for markets and society as failure to do so results in brands being dubbed as ‘conformists’ — those who reproduce the dominant moral judgments about what is acceptable to say publicly. While Mattel still shows a lack of moral vision by mostly reproducing mainstream discourses around gender and diversity, it at least shows some moral integration with the launch of gender-neutral Barbie dolls in 2019 followed by the launch of the UNO Play with Pride edition this year (alongside $50,000 donated to the It Gets Better Project).

Moral integration — a brand must have the ability to pursue their moral beliefs in all situations as failure to do so results in brands being dubbed as ‘opportunists’ and ‘fame-seekers’ — manipulating the boundaries of free speech to serve personal interest rather than reform morality. For example, despite sharing the positive experience of its LGBTQ+ staff members, Pfizer demonstrates a lack of moral integration by simultaneously funding anti-gay politicians.

But let’s not despair, some brands have understood the point of Pride Month and, in doing so, further the fight for LGBTQ equity and inclusivity. For example, over the last few year (moral integration), Skittles celebrates Pride Month with a limited-edition Skittles Pride Packs (gray packaging and all gray candies) to emphasize the rainbow visual as a symbol of the LGBTQ+ community (moral sensitivity), alongside donation of $1 from each pack to GLAAD.

So has Pride Month just become another branded holiday? Well, it’s not for us to settle. But what we can tell you is how to judge the genuineness of branded communication: evaluate the brand’s moral sensitivity, vision, and integration. While we can condemn the over-commercialisation of Pride Month, the good news is that these branded discourses, whatever their values and intent, still raise awareness of the LGBTQ+ cause and normalize and legitimize its presence in public discourse.

Want to know more? ‘Authenticating Brand Activism: Negotiating the Boundaries of Free Speech to Make a Change’ by Dr Olivier Sibai, Lecturer in Marketing at Birkbeck, University of London, Dr Mimoun, Lecturer in Marketing at the Business School (formerly Cass), and Dr Achilleas Boukis, Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Sussex, is published in Psychology & Marketing.

Prepare your Chevening application

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With less than two months until the opening of Chevening, the fully-funded scholarship for postgraduate students offered by the UK government, Catherine Charpentier, from Birkbeck’s International Marketing and Recruitment team, advises on how to prepare for the scholarship application.

A collage of six past Chevening students holding a sign saying 'I can't keep calm. I've been chosen for Chevening'

Some of the 2020 Chevening scholars

It’s official, applications for Chevening for 2022/23 open on Tuesday 3 August 2021!

You’ve underlined the date in red on your calendar. So what now? Is the only thing left for you to do is crossing off the days off on your diary?

Well, no. Now isn’t the time to rest. There is plenty to do ahead of the application opening date. Here are four things you need to do to prepare.

  1. Check that you meet the eligibility criteria

You need to have at least two years work experience (equivalent to 2,800 hours) in order to apply. This can be in part-time or full-time employment, voluntary work or paid or unpaid internship; and this can be submitted in up to 15 employment periods on the application form.

Get your calculator out. Your entries will be calculated automatically by multiplying the number of weeks worked by the number of hours worked per week. For this calculation, a working week comprises 35-60 hours and a working year comprises 40-50 weeks.

Don’t have 2,800 hours of experience yet? Why not apply for an internship, or offer your services to a volunteer organisation to make up the total? You should meet the requirements by the time you submit the application, which should be no later than 2 November 2021.

  1. Gain meaningful experience

It’s not only about quantity but also quality. You might have reached two years of work/voluntary experience but feel that your CV could do with improving. Don’t forget, you will also have to demonstrate leadership qualities in your application.

Can you take on extra responsibility at work? Could you offer to manage on a project for an organisation you are involved with? Can you organise an event for a charity?

The Chevening students outside Birkbeck entrance holding up a blue relay stick

Birkbeck’s 2019 Chevening scholars complete a relay

  1. Develop your network

In your application, you will be required to demonstrate your networking skills. Spend the next few months working on your network. You can reactivate old links and build new relations. This can be in person at work, at events you attend, or online via social media or LinkedIn for example.

You can refer to Birkbeck Futures The Importance of Networking for tips and advice to develop a networking strategy.

  1. Select your referees

You will have to give the name of two referees in your application. Use the next few months to select who you think could provide positive and meaningful references for you. Get in touch now, keep the relation going and remind them all the reasons why you will be deserving of this glorious reference when the time comes.

For further information on the scholarship visit the Chevening website.

“One of the biggest misconceptions about finance is that it’s investment banking and that’s it, but I feel there is a role for everyone.”

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Joseph Walsh studies BSc Financial Economics alongside his role as a Front Office Services Analyst at an asset management firm. Now President of Birkbeck’s Economics and Finance Society (EFS), he shares how the EFS has supported his career journey and his vision for the future of the society.

Joseph Walsh wearing a suit and tie against a white background.Why did you apply for BSc Financial Economics at Birkbeck?

After my A Levels, I went straight into work as an apprentice in Cyber Security. I started earning my own money and became more interested in investing and the world of finance, so I was keen to pursue further education and a career in finance and investing. I really liked the flexibility of Birkbeck’s evening study format, which allowed me to work and study at the same time. The course modules looked really interesting and had a good balance between economics and finance.


How did you get involved in the Economics and Finance Society (EFS)?

I found out about EFS through the Students’ Union at the start of term. It was one of the more prominent societies in the School of Business, Economics and Informatics and had a good range of ongoing events and activities.

One great guest speaker who sticks in my mind is an investor called James Hughes, who gave a really useful introductory talk about finance and investing. At that point, he was running his own private equity fund in Hong Kong, so it was really interesting to hear his experience of working in different locations and areas of finance.

What is your vision for the future of EFS?

As President of EFS, I’m looking to direct the society to cover two distinct areas. Firstly, the networking and social aspect, because it can be difficult to socialise spontaneously after class when everyone is juggling work and busy lives. I’ll be pushing for more structured events and activities. It could be something as simple as arranging a time for members meet at the student bar, but hopefully going forward we can host socials around London and do a range of different activities to get to know one another outside of lectures.

Secondly, and just as importantly is the technical knowledge and experience that you can get from having experts giving talks and speeches. That’s a really important part of the society and it’s something that is unique to EFS to hear from experts across finance and economics. It’s been difficult to replicate our networking events online, especially during exam term, so we’re looking forward to hosting in-person events when restrictions allow. In the meantime, we’ve been sharing useful industry-led content on our website and social media pages.

What are your career ambitions after Birkbeck?

I consider myself fairly lucky in that I know what I want to do in terms of a career and how to get there. I’m really interested in asset management, basically investing across the markets, so I’m strongly considering doing a master’s after my undergraduate degree to develop my knowledge and technical skills. Looking further ahead, I would like to go into some kind of investment research role. The dream role would be a portfolio manager, but I acknowledge that it’s quite a competitive field!

I appreciate that some people might not have that clarity of what they want to do, and that’s something that I and the other committee members are trying to address through the society. Through networking, talks and the different resources we post online, we can help people figure out what they’re interested in and whether they want to take economics and finance further and develop a career in it. One of the biggest misconceptions about finance is that it’s investment banking and that’s it, but I feel there is a role for everyone. Even for undergrads that haven’t got their degree yet, there are a variety of trainee schemes available. That’s how I started and was able to get a role at an asset management company.

Stay up to date with the EFS on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Further Information:

“The insight I now have about myself has changed my outlook on life.”

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Karen Bowden-Brown is an HR leader and coach. She shares her transformative experience on Birkbeck’s Postgraduate Certificate in Coaching Psychology.

Karen sitting outside, smiling.My career to date has been in HR and I considered coaching to be a vital part of my role as an HR leader and an area I wanted to develop further. I considered various learning routes but many of them seemed be very generic, the Birkbeck course was exactly what I was looking for.

We covered such a breadth of topics and theories from psychology and philosophy when considering the coaching approach.  We viewed coaching approaches through various lenses – normative, interpretative and postmodern, which provided a different insight. The latest academic thinking was shared and discussed and we had assignments drawing on these resources.

I particularly enjoyed the presentations from experienced practicing coaches who were invited to provide demonstrations of different styles of coaching approaches.

The course leadership is excellent and Andreas, Susan and Raul who led the Programme at that time have years of experience both academically and practically as Executive Coaches. They also provided great mentorship to our cohort and were always there to provide friendly challenge to stretch our learning.

I have made some excellent friendships during my time on the course and I remain in regular contact with my small work group.

The Postgraduate Certificate in Coaching Psychology gave me the confidence to provide internal leadership coaching as I had all the necessary tools. The course has taught me to approach conversations differently as a thought partner and a consultant – from a place of curiosity and open questioning.

The course has also been of benefit recently when I was reviewing the organisational approach to performance management – coaching by managers is now a core element to support all employee development.

I would go as far as to describe the course as life-changing, as the insight I now have about myself has changed my outlook on life. Additionally, the life skills I have developed on communication have been invaluable to me not just at work but with my family – especially with my children.

If you are considering this course, I would encourage you to invest in yourself! You won’t regret it.

Further Information:

Law, pandemic and crisis

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Professor Adam Gearey is a Professor of Law at Birkbeck’s Department of Law. In this blog, Professor Gearey previews Law on Trial, the School of Law’s annual week of free, public events around a particular theme, which this year is ‘Law, Pandemic and Crisis’.

A surgical mask on some grass next to some daisies

Photo by Niamh Gearey

The correct response to the ongoing Covid crisis should be: “enough, this won’t do anymore.” In putting law on trial, this series of workshops seeks to put the whole viral/ military/ technical/ capitalist/inhuman/ racist complex on trial.

Legal thinking needs to catch up with the crisis. This is not a re-tread of the self-satisfied cosmopolitanism of the 90s, or a false choice between identity politics and the politics of anti-capitalism. It is a less-deceived, pessimistic and realistic engagement with the depth of the crisis and the possibilities of transformation: a framing of new paradigms of legitimacy and new ways of thinking. The Black Lives Matter Movement, global concerns with racist policing, climate protest and insurrection in Colombia draw attention to different aspects of this international problem. A morally bankrupt order hangs on through power and promises of bread and circus.

The global health crisis, and the fixation on technical solutions, an obsession that clearly extends beyond health care, also starkly shows that ‘market solutions’ are anything but. Like Leonard Nimoy’s character in the film Assault on the Wayne, we are being fed pills by a bogus doctor that, instead of making us better, makes us much worse.

If we are stuck with markets, then they need to be extensively regulated. Markets should serve social ends, rather than the interests of an ‘elite’ whose wealth insulates them from the effects of the markets they recommend as the only possible form of social and economic organisation. At the very least we need to approach markets with an understanding of how their immanent and radical dysfunctions can be controlled in the interests of the common good.

So, although the global epidemic should provoke a massive realignment of how we do things, it’s unlikely that the new normal will be much different from the ongoing crises of the old normal. We will be stuck with fragile constitutions, dysfunctional markets, populist politics and ongoing social and environmental crises.

Thus, to put the law on trial is to ask, how can we see the big picture? How can we be the less deceived?

Further information 

“If you try and do everything at once, you’ll never get started.”

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Neither pregnancy nor a pandemic could keep Francesca Calabrese from completing her degree. She reflects on her experience on the BBA Culinary Industry Management.

Picture of Francesca CalabreseWhen I first moved to London, it was really important to me to be independent and not ask for help from my parents. My friends were all going to university and I would have loved to do the same, but as I was working full-time, I couldn’t see how I would be able to get a degree and support myself.

I was aware of Birkbeck because I was working in a hostel in nearby Russell Square, but I hadn’t realised that it had evening classes until I came across a prospectus that somebody had left in the hostel.

As a supervisor, I’ve always liked management, and my other passion is for cooking, as my dad is a chef. Ever since I was little, I’ve wanted to set up my own food business, like a restaurant or bakery, so when I was browsing the Birkbeck website and saw a new course launching with Le Cordon Bleu, BBA Culinary Industry Management, it felt like a sign!

Even after applying and completing my interview, I had my doubts about whether I would be able to manage work and study. However, I decided to give myself this opportunity, so I shifted to working part-time and applied for a student loan to help fund my studies. I’m so glad I did, as the course has been an amazing experience and really important for my future career.

The first year flew by: we had the opportunity to do practical sessions at Le Cordon Bleu, which I found completely fascinating. At Birkbeck, I attended lectures and explored management in more depth through small group seminars.

In the second year, we suddenly found ourselves in the COVID-19 pandemic. Even that felt doable, as our tutors were so understanding and were always available any time we needed help or support.

A global pandemic would have been enough to deal with, but last summer I got pregnant and once again was wondering if I would be able to manage. I can be quite a stubborn person and my friends were sure that I would end up dropping out, but I decided once again to give myself the opportunity to succeed. It was tough: my parents were in Italy and couldn’t come over to help me and the thought of the assessments I needed to do once my son was born was really stressful! At the time, I thought I would never make it, but now I’m writing my dissertation having missed just one class through it all and I’m almost done!

I’m so proud of what I’ve achieved and most of all I’m happy that I didn’t give up. Once things are a bit more normal, I’m interested in exploring food development and eventually opening my own business.

My advice to anyone considering studying at Birkbeck is that it’s really difficult to think in one-year terms: take things slowly, do one thing at a time, one exam at a time and things will get much easier. If you try and do everything all at once, you’ll never get started. Take your time, reflect and do things at your pace.

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“I want to inspire young mothers who feel they cannot further their education”

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Esther Dwemoh, aged 20, is studying BSc Criminology and Criminal Justice. She wants to share her story to encourage other young girls who get pregnant in their teenage years to not listen to the negative opinions of others.

Esther Dwemoh with her son, Caleb

My story is filled with people having no hope in me, because I was a teenage mum and people thought I didn’t have ambitions for my career.

I’ve lived in Croydon my whole life, and aspired to become a nurse during my school years. This was largely because I wanted to meet my parents’ expectations of me – I felt a lot of pressure to study a degree associated with the NHS. Growing up I had two brothers, and there was a big age gap between us, so I just saw them getting on with their lives.

I went on from school to study a BTEC in Health and Social Care to aid my career in nursing. I became pregnant in my first year of college, which really made me do some soul searching. I questioned if becoming a nurse was really something I wanted. One of my favourite things to do is watch crime documentaries, so when we had a careers fair in college, I decided to talk to people from a range of sectors, from police officers, to mental health counsellors, to youth workers. The youth worker I spoke to studied criminology and highly recommended it, so I decided to find out more.

People didn’t expect me to go to university, or even finish my studies at college. I found Birkbeck and felt it was the perfect place for me. I enrolled on the BSc Criminology and Criminal Justice course. My son, Caleb, was five months when I started at Birkbeck.

It hasn’t been easy balancing studies with raising a baby, but once you have a child you just learn how to multitask – it comes naturally. I’ve found it easy to make friends with other classmates, as early on we created a WhatsApp group. I think anyone of any age can consider studying at Birkbeck. That’s what makes it so special – the real mixture of ages and life experiences.

I want to encourage other young girls who get pregnant in their teenage years to not listen to the negativity of people who think you aren’t going to have a proper career. I think it’s important to not get discouraged once you’re pregnant, and to continue to follow your own personal dreams. My brother and I often speak about how we have both come such a long way, from initially following the expectations of our parents, to deciding to do what we wanted for our own happiness.

In the future, I hope to become a probation officer, because I want to give back to the community and I know helping others will be fulfilling. I want my son Caleb to see me as a role model and that’s what inspires me every day and motivates me to put 100% into everything I do.

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