Suffolk New College: Celebration of Student Achievement Night

Yesterday on the 10th November it was the Suffolk New College: Celebration of Student Achievement Night, an upbeat event where all students are invited to the college to watch and take part in the award ceremony, plus a few singing and dancing acts to act as breaks in the award giving.

2008

Now before I recount the event I'm going to cast my mind back to 2008, where I attended the same type of event, after finishing my first diploma course in IT with a Merit grade. On that night, I remember feeling ill and not really wanting to attend. Somehow my parents persuaded me to go, since I'd been told in advance by one of my Suffolk College tutors, that I'd get some sort of award, likely some sort of commemorative pen, and probably be congratulated by my tutors in a classroom somewhere.

I was therefore very surprised when I realised I would have to stand up on stage in front of 150+ people. At this point in my life, I'd never actually won anything due to academic achievement, so it was a truly special moment when I received my award (Outstanding Effort and Commitment First Diploma ICT) statue on stage, and got my photograph taken for the evening star while shaking hands with the person who represented the sponsor of the award, EdExcel. When I look back on it afterwards, it actually felt like a dream... But it wasn't a dream, for the first time in my life I was being recognised for doing well academically. For that one special night, I felt like I was on top of the world...

2010

Now, fast forward back to the year 2010, and I was about to attend a similar event. This time, I hadn't been told in advance that I would receive an award, but sadly that didn't stop me hoping that I'd get one anyway. When I arrived with my parents, I entered the building via the zone reception, since I had to get my seat number registered, while my parents entered via the main entrance. Soon after I was shown to my seat, in the front row, and I met a friend from last years ICT course, Chris. We talked for a while, mostly catching up on how our summers went, and what we were doing now. Chris had decided to take a gap year in forensic computer science, and was looking for a job in the meantime. I told him a bit about my Game Design course.

We also spoke to two of our tutors from last year, once again about how our lives were going and what we'd been doing since we finished our college course. Shortly after this Renee arrived and the three of us talked for a bit, once again catching up. It soon became obvious about 10 minutes before the event would begin proper, that me, Chris and Renee were the only people from our course that decided to attend, 3 out of a class of 30! In the last 10 minutes I started idly flicking through the programme for tonight's event. The programme included a list of everyone who would receive awards, divided by year and course. I was quite disappointed when I realised that my name wasn't on the list for our course. Ah well...

Finally the main event began, and Suffolk New College representatives took to the stage to present the awards. The awards were divided into courses, with each course having a different sponsor to present the award. After about 20 minutes a break was had, taking the form of a group of dance students singing rehearsed songs. After 5 minutes of this, the awards continued. Eventually the last award was given out, and each group of students was asked to stand up on stage as a class, and have a group photo taken. This felt quite odd considering Me, Chris, Renee and Linda, one of my tutors, were representing the entire class of 30 people.

Soon after this I met up with my parents and we went home...

This concludes my account of the event.

So, was I disappointed that I failed to receive an award this year? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't slightly disappointed, I worked harder the last 2 years, and at the end of the course, I got a better grade, in fact, I got the highest grade DDD, overall distinction. Of course, I wasn't the only person to do this, and since only one award was given to my course, it was unlikely I would be the one to receive it.

I don't regret going though, the event itself was fun to attend and it was hard to believe it had already been 2 whole years since the 2008 event, it certainly didn't seem like that much time to me.

Thanks for reading. :)