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"I am now a research student in the Department of Applied Social Studies."

Brand new graduate student Suzella Palmer has overcome enormous odds to attain a first class honours degree in Criminology.

She also wins the University's Gill Blowers Prize, awarded for outstanding research in criminology by an undergraduate, for her dissertation Made in the Ghetto: Black Identity, Resistance and Criminality.

Suzella, 32, said: "I got into higher education almost by accident. With two children and no support I was unable to work. I was persuaded to take an access course at Barnfield College and again persuaded to apply for the University at the end of it."

After her first-degree success, Suzella is now looking towards doing a PhD. She said: "My studies at Luton have transformed me. It's rubbed off on my kids and my son now sees attending university as a normal part of his development."

Her tutor, Professor John Pitts, said: "Suzella has demonstrated a genuine and powerful intellect and has been a delight to teach. She is precisely the sort of student that Luton nurtures and values."

Interview took place in 2002.