Completing her degree at the age of just 18, Zahra Alidina is The Open University’s youngest ever law graduate.
Zahra left school at the age of 13 to pursue law related subjects at GCSE and A-Level through home education. Completing her A-Levels at just 15, she found it difficult to get into traditional universities because of her age. After a detailed interview with The Open University, Zahra was accepted onto the law degree programme and her OU study journey began.
‘Passion for law’
Zahra said: “I’ve had a passion for law from a young age – I always spent as much free time as I could visiting public galleries, reviewing cases and following them. I spent time at The Old Bailey and the Royal Courts of Justice; it was fascinating seeing all those high profile cases happening and I decided I wanted to be one of those Barristers practicing.”
I feel very lucky to have been given the opportunity to embark on a career that I have always wanted to do, as well as being fortunate enough to be confident enough to know and pursue what I love and what I wanted to do from such a young age.
Incredible support
Zahra says that one of the biggest challenges to distance learning is being disciplined and self-motivated; she had to work hard to bring her writing style up to the standard required for degree-level law.
She said: “I had an incredible amount of support from my own peers, students, and tutors at the OU. I am very ambitious and I work incredibly hard; it’s amazing to think that if all these people believed in me I could believe in myself as well.”
Watch the video of Zahra explaining her experience of being a student with the OU:
Find out more about studying Law with The Open University:
