Hard work and determination come as second nature to college students Dylan and Simon.
For Dylan, of Billingham, it has meant working tirelessly towards his ambitions alongside a lengthy three and a half-year battle with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.
While Redcar granddad, Simon, has overcome his childhood fears of the classroom to retrain and start a new career on a hospital ward, starting work at the height of Covid.
Both have been named finalists at the Association of Colleges’ (AoC) Student of the Year Awards.
Down to the final two in the Adult Learner of the Year, Bede Sixth Form College student, Dylan, said: “It’s a really big shock. I didn’t expect this at all. It is such an achievement and I feel quite honoured.”
It was ambitions to work in the police that helped to drive 20-year-old Dylan to complete the public services course at Bede.
Diagnosed with leukaemia at 15, he had long since learnt to live with regular hospital stays and treatment.
Nominating him for the award, his tutor at Bede, George Parkinson, said: “You would often get his peers perhaps thinking, “I can’t be bothered today, this is a hard fitness session,” and then Dylan runs past them and it’s like, “whoa, hang on a second, I need to up my game a little bit here.”.”
Dylan completed his treatment last December and he is now studying professional policing at CU Scarborough.
For AoC Higher Education Student of the Year finalist and Redcar and Cleveland College student Simon, 51, returning to the classroom was quite a challenge.
Never a fan of school he had always hid away at the back. It was after a string of jobs over the years that he decided he wanted to work for the NHS and braved a return to the classroom.
“I kept telling myself I was too old to start my training,” he said. Fortunately, he didn’t give in to the doubts.
Simon went on to complete his access to higher education health at the college before moving on to the level 4 and now level 5 qualifications.
Volunteering to work at The James Cook University Hospital mid pandemic, Simon went on to be offered a job, he is now a healthcare assistant in critical care.
He said: “The first time I came to college, I was the quiet lad sat at the back of the class again, just like school. But eventually, I started moving to the front of the class.”
Nominating him for the AoC Higher Education Student of the Year Award, Redcar and Cleveland College’s Michelle Kelso said: “To think that one of my students has stood up there and, in a way, risked his own life to help preserve other people’s lives, I am just an extremely proud tutor.”
With just four titles up for grabs, winners of the AoC Student of the Year Awards will be announced in the New Year.
