A married couple who studied alongside each other will be starting new lives after graduating from the University of Salford on the same day.
Mark Green will be walking out of next week’s MediaCityUK graduation ceremony on July 21 armed with a 2:1 in occupational therapy, while Nicola Green will leave the same event with a first in prosthetics and orthotics.
The couple chose to enrol together after deciding to make a fresh start. Nicola had been working for a sports rehabilitation charity in north Wales while former nurse Mark had been working in retail, and was even doing a stint as an ice cream man before starting his course.
Mark, aged 32, said: “We both just thought we needed to do something more with our lives, and as we both wanted to do it we were able to motivate ourselves. If we hadn’t done it together we probably wouldn’t have done it at all.
”It was very convenient, as we were both studying on the same campus so we could come in together and share lifts. We often had to do the same assignments so we had to sit in different rooms of the house so we wouldn’t have any chance of being able to copy each other’s work!
“There was a slightly competitive element to studying together, but she got her result slightly before I did, so there wasn’t a big moment when we both opened our envelopes at the same time.”
The couple, who had known each other since they went to the same school in Warrington and were married before enrolling, had previously lived in Greater Manchester and wanted to return there.
Nicola, aged 29, already had a degree in sports science, and chose the University of Salford because it is the only institution in England offering a degree in prosthetics – something she had wanted to learn more about after her work with the rehabilitation charity.
She said: “I had worked with a lot of the injured veterans who had come back from Afghanistan, and that really got me interested in prosthetics and orthotics, and inspired me to apply for the course.
“I probably wouldn’t have done it if Mark hadn’t wanted to go study, and we just thought – wouldn’t it be better if we did it together?”
Armed with their new qualifications, the couple will now be moving down to Dorset where they have both got jobs in their chosen fields – and where they can also follow their dream of living near the sea. But first, they both have the graduation ceremony to attend.
Mark said: “It’s amazing really – I’m very happy that we’ve been through this together and we’re both going to be on the same graduation picture.”
