Rebel pupil turns PhD student

Jane is now studying at UCL and Birkbeck Research School

By Katherine Sellgren
BBC News Online education staff

Jane Archer's teachers told her she was not good enough to study for A-levels and little wonder - she was in with the wrong crowd, regularly played truant and left school at 16 with just six GCSEs above grade C.

Eleven years later though, Jane was graduating from Kingston University with a first class honours degree in applied geology, having scooped a number of academic prizes.

She had also gained a place at University College London and Birkbeck Research School to study for a PhD in environmental geochemistry.

I had always assumed that degrees were really hard and beyond my capabilities Jane Archer

Her research takes her to Bolivia for lengthy field trips to examine the effects of mining pollution on the local population and she has had to learn Spanish and medicine into the bargain.

So what turned this former rebel pupil into a high-flying research student? After seven years in banking, Jane was bored.

"I just couldn't see myself doing that in 30 years' time," she says.

"Lots of things came to a head for me - the break up of an engagement, the death of a colleague in a car crash and I was thinking I should do a degree to prove I could.

"I had always assumed that degrees were really hard and beyond my capabilities, but I was starting to see I was as bright as some of my colleagues who had degrees."

Algebra and tears

Jane's brother was a student at Kingston University in Surrey and, at the time, she was living in Wimbledon, so it seemed the obvious place to start.

It was like waking up after seven years asleep Jane

Because she did not have any A-levels, Jane had to do a foundation year before embarking on her degree at Kingston.

"I remember my first lesson was five and a half hours of basic algebra and I cried because I couldn't do it.

"I found it really hard after working, but I started to really love it - it was like waking up after seven years asleep."

Once she started on her degree, Jane continued to shine, constantly scoring top marks.

"It was so different to school, where I'd doodle in exams and look out of the window because I hadn't revised.

"I was suddenly really enjoying the exams because I knew all the answers."

Urine samples and a straw bed

Her success at degree level spurred Jane on to take up post-graduate studies.

She is interested in green issues and jumped at the chance to examine the impact 500 years of mining had had on local populations in the Andes.

Jane is examining locals' finger nails for traces of pollution

"Metals like mercury, arsenic and lead have constantly been chucked out into the Pilcomayo River and the people drink the water, they wash in it, water their land with it, give it to their cattle and so on.

"I've been taking water samples, urine samples and also samples of people's hair and finger nails."

Jane has been touched by the warmth of the local people, who think nothing of putting her up on a straw bed in their huts.

She in turn thinks nothing of hiking 20 kilometres from rural village to village with her pack on her back.

"It's real work - going out and helping people in these communities. It's just been amazing."

Back in London to analyse the samples before heading off to Bolivia again, Jane says she bears no resentment to her teachers for not recommending her for A-level study, nor for failing to stimulate her in class.

"It was no-one's fault - I was just easily distracted. In some ways I wish I'd done it all earlier, but then I don't know if I'd have done as well."