Deborah Wood
Awarded Justin Champion Prize for Best Overall Joint Honours Graduate
I am both delighted and humbled to have been awarded the Justin Champion prize for the Best Overall Joint Honours Graduate.
Being part of the department
As a joint honours student in History and English, I have had the chance to explore the great variety of subjects and ideas that both departments have to offer. Joint honours courses that compliment each other so well are hard to find, and Royal Holloway's course gave me a brilliant combination of structured study and options. The ability to choose from such a wide range of course options allowed me to shape a cohesive degree experience that suited my interests, and expanded them to new horizons, both within and beyond discipline boundaries. From queer histories, to Anglo-Saxon myths, to Britian's complex imperial history, the combined skills that these courses provided allowed me to read beyond the sometimes limited sources of the past to extrapolate their meaning both for their historical context, and for our world today.
A bit about Deborah
I am taking these lessons forward with me into my next adventure; a masters in Polar Studies at Cambridge's Scott Polar Research Institute will use the interdisciplinary skills, the strong basis of historical context, and the ability to communicate arguments effectively to a variety of audiences - all skills that I gained here.
The wonderful staff at Royal Holloway have completely transformed my confidence, as a scholar, an advocate, and a person, and I owe them a huge debt of thanks for their time and their willingness to go above and beyond for their students, no matter the circumstances."
