Maisie鈥檚 love of learning lands her 拢1,000

Maisie PriorMaisie PriorA 黑料不打烊 student whose course has taken her to some amazing places and given her more life experience than she could ever imagine has come runner up in this year鈥檚 competition.

Maisie Prior, 20, from Littlethorpe, Leicester, who鈥檚 studying for a BA Spanish with International Experience degree, is one of three runners up, and won 拢1,000 plus a year鈥檚 subscription to The Times.

Around 2,500 current students entered the competition that challenged them to write a 500 word essay or produce a 30 second video that shows how they have been captivated by their course.

Mary Curnock Cook, Chief Executive of UCAS said: 鈥淭he second year of our Love Learning competition has given more students the chance to proclaim an unbridled passion for their subject.

 鈥淐ongratulations to our winners and runners up on their entries which capture powerfully the sense of self creation and expansion that is the essence of higher education.鈥�

Loving her course, Maisie wrote in her :

鈥� I believe my dearly loved degree has made me who I am today. Spanish has given me the confidence to just drop everything and go, if only to satisfy that craving of needing to learn more; learn more vocabulary, learn more about different food, cultures, and the kindness of strangers. To learn what it means to be fearless, to be lost in a new place, to be the only one in the room who is foreign.

Excited with her achievement, Maisie said: 鈥�'I entered the competition in hope that I could inspire other people to learn languages.

鈥淚 was very surprised to be a runner up, it鈥檚 incredible! Studying Spanish has been such a journey; I鈥檓 so passionate about it and I'm really pleased this came across in the essay. It鈥檚 also amazing to get some recognition for the subject as a whole, especially with recent drops in university applications for modern languages.

Publication date: 1 August 2014