Farhana Choudhury

Farhana is a primary school teacher, who studied both her undergraduate degree and her MEd Psychology of Education at The University of Manchester, winning a Junior Nobel Prize for Education along the way. Most recently she completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Education through the Teach First programme.

On choosing Manchester

The Manchester Institute for Education (MIE) at The University of Manchester had a fantastic wealth of incredible tutors and opportunities that I could learn and benefit from.

The tutors are really second to none.

On choosing a career in teaching

I had always wanted to choose a profession where I could create a lasting impact.

I can’t think of a better profession than teaching to achieve this.

With teaching, the impact will never end.

This is something very important to me as I believe that the education and learning I impart to those under my care counts as an act of charity and goodwill.

On how my courses prepared me for teaching

Through my undergraduate degree, I was able to look at the education sector through the different lenses of the classroom, government and society.

This gave me a holistic understanding of where we are as a nation in terms of education and how best we can go forth to provide teaching of outstanding quality.

The most surprising takeaway from my undergraduate degree is the impact the course unit named 'Global Literacy' had.

Through this course unit, and through the encouragement of my fantastic tutor, Susie Miles, I was awarded the Junior Nobel Prize for Education (2017) due to an assignment I had submitted.

Through my master’s, I was able to focus on the 'how' of learning and the beauty of neuro-diversity.

This has really helped me in my day-to-day teaching as I am able to deploy various methods of teaching to meet the varied needs present within my classroom.

Being able to explore education scientifically has really helped in my understanding of how we can learn.

On my advice for aspiring students

This university is ideal for anyone with a thirst for learning and even greater desire to create a lasting impact.