Graduated 1997

I joined the department in September 1992 and graduated in March 1997, one semester later than expected, because of the ‘Lingua’ Diploma exchange opportunity I was given at the University of Westminster, London, between February and June 1996.

I had begun teaching English as a Foreign Language in year 3 of my degree and continued doing so in Thessaloniki, following my course completion, until 1999. By that point I felt I was not developing in any way nor was I expanding my education, so having saved a few millions of ‘drachmas’ at the time, I secured a place for a MPhil (B) at the University of Birmingham in the UK which I started in October 1999. After completing the year, I was given the option of graduating or progressing to a PhD, and I chose the latter thus remaining in the UK. My PhD was on the two ‘Common Reader’ essay volumes by Virginia Woolf and issues of dialogism and impersonality, the thesis from which I had published as a monograph by Ashgate in 2009. I managed to secure work as an EFL, EAP and GCSE/A-Level English tutor in the years during and after my degree, until 2005 when I decided to move to UK Higher Education administration, which is where I’ve been employed since. After appointments at London Metropolitan University, King’s College London and London Business School, I currently work as Education Manager at Imperial College London, managing a large team which supports undergraduate, postgraduate taught and postgraduate research programmes in Medicine.

I may not have gone down the path of academia within the humanities but completing my first degree in the School of Philosophy at Aristotle University undoubtedly gave me solid foundations for my career within education, made me an avid reader, and equipped me with valuable transferable skills which I’m still utilising. The books I read and studied under the instruction of the academic staff in the department I often go back to and re-read. For example, work by Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson taught by Prof. Parkin-Gounelas; who would have expected The Handmaid’s Tale we studied decades ago would become so topical in our days or would be turned into a vastly popular television series for mass public consumption? Lolita and The Magus taught by Prof. Kokonis I’ve come to read and re-read, watch and watch again for years to come; American literature like The Sun Also Rises or Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway or work by William Faulkner studied with Prof. Kalogeras I absolutely adore. I’d never have learnt about Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, Hanif Kureishi or the more obscure Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco without the passionate teaching by Prof. Patsalidis.

It’s now been almost 25 years since I finished by first degree but the experiences I had, the friendships and relationships I formed, the knowledge I gained, the lectures I attended I still talk about and share with other friends who graduated with me. They have all been invaluable and I think of them with great nostalgia.

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