Growing up, Jess McCoy, 24, didn’t think they would be able to go to university. “Being from a working-class background, the only thing I was told about university was that it was a lot of money,” they say. No one from McCoy’s family had been to university before them and, as they suffer from some invisible health conditions that result in fatigue as one of the biggest side effects, they weren’t sure their A-levels would hit the mark.
“I had planned to get a job or join a branch of the military,” McCoy, who is originally from Gateshead, says. “At the time, I just thought I’m not smart enough for university.”
