Samantha in running for prestigious award; Student honoured for will to achieve

Byline: By NEIL ATKINSON News Editor

SHE suffered bereavement and family problems.

But student nurse Samantha Smith was determined to forge a career in her field and took on FOUR part-time jobs to fund her Huddersfield studies.

Now Samantha has become the winner of a prestigious award designed to acknowledge student achievement in the face of considerable adversity.

Samantha, 22, from Brighouse, has been named the Xcel Healthcare Student of the Year 2008.

The nationwide search for a student who has succeeded in their studies despite personal or financial difficulty was aimed at those from multi-ethnic backgrounds and minority groups, including disabled students and women.

Samantha is now in the running for the overall title and will attend an Oscars-style awards ceremony in London in October where the winner will be announced.

She will also receive pounds 500.

Samantha, who is due to graduate from the University of Huddersfield with a nursing diploma of Higher Education in November, worked 70-hour weeks in four jobs and supported herself financially to achieve her goal of a university education.

She worked as a barmaid at the Marten's Nest pub in Brighouse, as a sandwich shop assistant, a morning cleaner and as a kitchen assistant.

"Since I can remember I've wanted to be a nurse," she said. "Inmy first year things were relatively easy as I was able to live at home with my parents. Previously I had lost someone very close to me, and studying nursing you deal with issues like death and grieving and I realised that there were things I still had to work through as a person.

"Then when I started my second year I suffered further loss and my family structure broke down, so it wasn't possible to continue living with my parents.

"I had to support myself financially and find somewhere to live, so I've been working really hard to do that. Sometimes I'd get in from work at 1am and then have to write an assignment, but that's just how it was. When you don't have anyone to depend on, you depend on yourself and it becomes the norm."

Now Samantha has a new job at Calderdale Royal Infirmary in Halifax.

She added: "In the future I'd like to go into oncology and I have a list of things that I want to do before I'm 30, but I haven't even done half of those, so I can't stop now!

"I think that, no matter what life throws at you, as long as you have worked hard for what you really want, no-one can ever take that away."

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DETERMINED: Top nursing student Samantha Smith (S)

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