In the latest episode of the Nostalgia podcast series, Chris Deacy, Head of the Department of Religious Studies, interviews Mary Sullivan, a retired psychiatric nurse and social worker who graduated from the University of Kent this summer with a first class degree in Religious Studies and History.
In this episode, Mary talks about her previous experience of going to Ruskin College, Oxford, which specialised in offering education for working class people, and about how the two sides of her degree blended so well. The pair discuss the advantages of studying Religious Studies, including finding out about faiths different from one’s own.
Chris then asks Mary whether her perception of herself changed during the course of her degree. Mary also talks about working class education, learning about faiths other than one’s own, her family’s Irish roots, ‘stranger danger’, school detention, listening to Radio Luxembourg, her favourite member of The Beatles, being a political activist, the change in technology over the years, what happens when your identity is bound up with your job, life post-divorce, and why her younger self would be ‘gobsmacked’ to find out what she is doing now.