College alum and published author shares inspiring story at Open Day

Saturday 10 June saw City of Bristol College’s last Open Event of the academic year take place across all of our centres.

It was brilliant to welcome so many prospective students and to display a taste of life at our college where Everyone Belongs.

This Open Event, we offered something a little different in the form of an ex-student and published Author, Dr. Dan Matthews PhD. MBA MIoD who had a stand in the LRC at our College Green centre throughout the duration of the event.

Dan was on hand to speak with prospective students about Further Education and his personal college experience, something which heavily influenced his book ‘8 Principles of Further Education: Progressing Your Career to an Elite Level’.

Within the pages of his book, Dan speaks about his time at City of Bristol College and how much of a transformative experience he encountered during his time with us.

In conversation with Julia Gray, Principal and Chief Executive Officer, Dan offered a further insight into his college life.

Speaking of his college Lecturer at the time, Programme Lead/Business Lecturer – Slavica Talbot, Dan commented: “I fell into Slavica’s arms for my Level 7 qualification; it was absolutely incredible! She was a huge influence, her lessons were empowering, enlightening, unique and different.

“You would come out of the classroom and you would have no energy left as you would have had to think so much whilst in lesson. Slavica taught me to open my mind and to question everything.”

He continued: “City of Bristol College was a big thing for me. I was only here for nine months, every Wednesday from 1pm in the afternoon to 9pm in the evening and there were nine units within my course. I think each unit averaged around 3000 words each, that was different..so intense. But the energy in the room was what made you come back, made you want to engage.”

As part of the wider conversation taking place regarding the invaluable nature of Further Education, Julia stated: “Depending on the point of the journey that you’re at; some people have a very clear picture of why they want to do what they want to do, but often people don’t and that’s the joy of Further Education, that everyone comes from different starting points in their journey and has different end points and that creates different opportunities of itself.

“Everything is a vehicle to get you to that next step and where you end up, even if you can’t clearly articulate at that initial point where you’d like to finish your journey. The learning and the process is part of it.”