Reflecting on her newest accomplishment, Bernice mentioned she has “spent my life learning and shall proceed so to do till I depart for someplace higher”.
At 92, Bernice Juxon-Jones may be probably the most mature of all mature college students, and he or she has simply added one more feather to her tutorial cap, incomes a grasp of philosophy diploma in medieval German from Swansea College – a testomony to a lifelong ardour for studying that exhibits no signal of slowing down.
Bernice’s fascination with languages started early. Transferring to Swansea on the age of six, she found an outdated German grammar printed in 1889, written in Gothic script with handwriting examples in Kurrent. “I used to be fascinated and commenced to show myself,” she recalled. “I really feel significantly happy with my achievement of going from easy der, die, das, to A-level, to a BA (hons) London.”
Her linguistic curiosity prolonged past German. She went on to discover Previous Norse and Spanish earlier than learning A-level French and German. She then determined to take additional A-levels in Russian and Spanish whereas dabbling in Italian, Hindi, and Dutch amongst different languages.
After being educated at St Winefride’s Convent Faculty in Ffynone, Bernice began her profession as an artwork trainer at a secondary trendy ladies’ faculty at Swansea Dock. She later moved to a brand new complete faculty in Port Talbot, educating French and German to the sixth type.
It was there that she met her good friend and mentor, French trainer Kathleen Hennessy, who supported her as an exterior pupil on the College of London.
Bernice credit Ms Hennessy for her early tutorial success. “It’s all due to her that in 1968 I acquired my BA,” she recalled. “We then each went on to realize our A-level in Spanish, attending many summer time programs in Spain.”
In 1969, Bernice moved to Bermuda, the place she nonetheless lives. She earned a BA in German in 1972 and, after a memorable summer time in Salamanca, pursued an MA in Spanish on the College of Salamanca.
Later, she consolidated her wide-ranging research in historical past, literature, artwork, music, sociology, and faith with an MA in humanities from California State College Dominguez Hills, graduating with an ideal 4.0 GPA – the very best doable tutorial achievement within the U.S. academic system.
Her newest tutorial pursuit started in 2019, specializing in Parzival, the story of 1 man’s quest for the Holy Grail. Professor Julian Preece, chair in German at Swansea College’s faculty of tradition and communication, mentioned that he and his colleague, Dr Alison Williams, “discovered it a pleasure to work with somebody so devoted to her topic”.
He added: “Bernice is within the Christian values Wolfram explores, particularly the numerous types of transformation and redemption, and developed an interpretation based mostly on her personal religion. To see Bernice inspecting the subject for its personal sake in her retirement was inspiring and her achievement is unbelievable.”
Reflecting on her newest accomplishment, Bernice mentioned she has “spent my life learning and shall proceed so to do till I depart for someplace higher”.
She added: “I really feel content material with my lot in life and grateful to these expensive, good nuns who began me off on the trail to studying at my convent faculty.”
