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Crime paying off for Helen
studious: Helen Monk topped off her studies with a doctorate in crime
Preston woman Helen Monk is celebrating a life of crime.
For the 30-year-old from Fulwood saw her education come full circle when she collected a doctorate from the city’s University of Central Lancashire.
Helen has spent the past 12 years studying and teaching criminology at the Preston campus.
In 2002 she was the first criminology student to achieve a first class honours degree on the then new course.
Her success has now been topped after she celebrated receiving her Phd.
She said: “All my adult life has been spent at UCLan, I’ve grown up here and it’s been a really positive time, topped off with gaining my doctorate.
“It’s been an all encompassing experience in terms of learning, researching and lecturing and I’ve learnt a lot.”
Helen added: “I was interested in social justice and was torn between social work and criminal justice so thought criminology would be a good mix and it was a new course at UCLan at that time.
“I really enjoyed my degree, I managed to get a first and that was a great motivation to continue my studies to a doctorate level.”
Her love of the subject led to her winning a competitive scholarship for her PhD on identity and violence against women and started lecturing part-time.
She realised she had a passion for teaching and gained a full-time teaching post at the university during her doctoral studies.
Helen said: “I loved interacting with the students.
“It gave me a different way of putting into practice what I’d learnt and offered me a public forum for sharing my knowledge.
“I’d enjoyed a great relationship with my lecturers, they’d been really encouraging, so I wanted to try to follow that model in my teaching career.”
She has now ended her link with UCLan after being offered a full-time criminology lecturer post at Liverpool John Moores University and is now doing further research.
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Wednesday 23 May 2012
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