Anezi Juliana Asouzu - SVL of the Year Faculty of Health & Social Care
Anezi Juliana Asouzu, SVL of the Year 2025/26 Faculty of Health, Social Care & Education
This summer, my university invited me to serve as Principal Mace Bearer and student orator across four graduation ceremonies. I led the academic procession into halls filled with graduates and their families, and closed each ceremony with a speech to the graduating class. My own graduation will not take place until later this year, yet there I was, speaking to graduates as they crossed a threshold I was still approaching. To anyone watching, it was a ceremony. To me, it was a testimony.
Where the Road Began
My journey did not begin at Middlesex. I first studied Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London, a degree I loved and a future I had carefully planned. During that degree, deeply traumatic circumstances forced me to leave the chapter unfinished, and what followed was one of the most difficult periods of my life.
When I arrived at Middlesex to study Adult Nursing, I came quietly. I spent most of my first year incredibly nervous, still carrying the weight of what I had been through, and living with a chronic illness. Yet beneath the uncertainty was a decision I had already made: my past could inform my future, but it would not be allowed to write it.
The Promise
At the very beginning of my second year, grief found me again. I lost a close friend, a nursing student in my own cohort, to cancer. I will never forget her final words to me, a simple instruction: "Make sure you finish this course, and make sure you finish it well."
I promised her I would and that promise changed the course of my degree. Every essay, placement and exhausting shift that followed became an act of keeping my word. Finishing well could no longer mean simply passing. It meant becoming someone I would be proud of, someone she would have been proud of, and someone whose journey could give others a reason to keep going.
Learning to Lead
That same year, I became one of the Student Voice Leaders for my cohort in the Adult Nursing programme, acting as a bridge between students and staff, making sure concerns and constructive feedback reached the people with the power to act on them.
In my final year, I was selected for the paid position of Student Faculty Leader for Health, Social Care and Education with MDXSU. I now represented students across the entire faculty, from nursing and social work to education. I sat in meetings with senior staff, gathered evidence of the issues students were facing, raised collective concerns, and followed them through until something changed.
Those roles taught me that leadership is rarely glamorous. It lives in difficult meetings, careful emails, and the discipline of turning frustration into evidence and evidence into change. They also taught me that representation begins with listening, speaking for people means little unless you have first understood what they are truly trying to say.
What Nursing Gave Me
Through placements in some of the most demanding areas of clinical practice, I learned to think critically, recognise deterioration, challenge what did not seem right, and make careful decisions under pressure.
Nursing is also a profession governed by a code. Living by the NMC Code did not just make me a better student, it made me a better person. It taught me to treat every individual with dignity, to be honest when things go wrong, and to hold myself to a high standard at all times. Above all, nursing showed me that the most meaningful service often happens quietly, witnessed only by the person who needed you. That, I have come to believe, is also true of leadership.
Recognition
In my final year, I was nominated for two national awards by my programme leader, students across my cohort, and practice assessors from different placement areas. From thousands of nominees nationwide, I was shortlisted as a finalist at the Student Nursing Times Awards in two categories: Most Inspirational Student Nurse of the Year and Student Nurse of the Year: Adult. I also received the Student Voice Leader of the Year Award for Health, Social Care and Education at Middlesex University.
I share these not to impress, but to bear witness. For years, I feared that what had happened to me had permanently shrunk what was possible. These moments proved otherwise. A disrupted beginning does not have to become a diminished future.
The People Who Helped Me Believe
No journey like this is completed alone. I am deeply grateful to my Programme Leader, Aneta, and my Academic Assessor, Lindy, women whose knowledge, leadership, and presence showed me that the goals I carried were not beyond my reach. Their belief in me shaped my journey far more than any title could suggest. I am equally grateful to the practice assessors and supervisors who trusted me with responsibility and challenged me to grow.
What Comes Next
My path is now drawing me towards advocacy and leadership. I intend to pursue postgraduate study while working as a nurse in the NHS, building on everything this journey has taught me and continuing to speak up for those whose voices too often go unheard.
Middlesex gave me the ground on which to rebuild, and I intend to remain close to its community and its students, supporting them in whatever way I can.
To the Student Whose Beginning Was Not Gentle
Let me end by speaking to the student who grew up amid circumstances they did not choose, who carries wounds their classmates know nothing about, and who sits in lectures wondering whether people like them truly belong.
I see you, because I was you.
I entered Middlesex carrying pain, and this summer I carried its mace. I did so not because the pain had disappeared, but because I refused to let it have the final word. It did not disqualify me, as I once feared it would. It became the depth from which my leadership grew.
Your beginning does not define you. It is not about how you start. It is about how you choose to finish.
So finish, and finish well.
Don't forget to stay updated — follow us on our social media pages:
