Tanisha Wallace, from Dungannon, is graduating today with a Master’s in Marketing from Queen’s University Belfast, having grappled with personal challenges, including mental health difficulties, to pursue a new-found passion. 

For Tanisha, graduating will be so much more than an academic achievement. It marks a personal goal she sometimes thought she would never reach. 

Since her teenage years, Tanisha has struggled to manage emotional and psychological stress often invisible to the outside world. 

She explains: 

“I feel emotions very intensely, and that can make stressful or uncertain situations more challenging. Stress, sudden changes or feeling unsure of where I stand can make it difficult to stay grounded. It is simply part of who I am and how I process the world.” 

Tanisha also carries a lot of caring responsibilities on her shoulders. She helps care for her younger brother Corey, who is autistic and faces his own daily battles with the world. Her mother, Sinead, is a breast cancer survivor who now lives with lymphoedema, which can cause painful swelling and leaves her vulnerable to flare-ups and infections such as cellulitis. 

Her mother was hospitalised for a period while Tanisha was studying for her Master’s. As well as visiting her daily, Tanisha was trying to look out for Corey, hold down a part-time job, complete her assignments and all while driving long distances between university, home, hospital and her job. 

As the first in her family to attend university, Tanisha has always been keenly aware of the responsibility of that and of how much her parents sacrificed in order to open up doors for her. They started working at a young age to provide for their children. 

So, it wasn’t a casual decision to change tack from her first degree of English Literature to follow a Marketing pathway at post-grad level. 

Tanisha reflects: 

“I loved my undergraduate degree because storytelling has always been a big part of who I am. But it was in my first full-time job at agricultural and horticulture wholesalers JF McKenna, in Armagh, that everything changed. I stumbled across marketing tasks and I realised how much the work lit me up. 

“Marketing brought together everything I cared about – culture, behaviour, psychology, ethics and strategy. That experience inspired me to apply for a Master’s at Queen’s Business School, and after being accepted, I continued at JF McKenna part-time.” 

She loved studying Marketing and knew it was the direction she now wanted to go in. 

Tanisha recalls: 

“It felt like the world was opening up. I soon realised I was not just completing assignments. I felt like I was contributing to conversations that mattered. It made me ambitious for a career that made me feel alive.” 

Tanisha is now enjoying valuable work experience at JF McKenna Ltd but doesn’t rule out the prospect of further study down the line, perhaps even a PhD in Marketing. 

When she graduates today, the achievement will be all the sweeter because of all the challenges she had to overcome. 

She shares: 

“There were days I could barely get out of bed. There were nights I cried from exhaustion and mornings where the thought of facing another day felt overwhelming. My progress was not perfect. Some days my best was simply showing up. Other days, all I could do was breathe and try again the next day.” 

What kept Tanisha going was being part of a loving, close-knit family. 

Talking about the strength they gave her: 

“During the darkest days, my family and my friends were my lifeline. They reminded me that I was capable even when I felt empty. They held me together when I felt like breaking apart.  

“My family never once pressured me or pushed me to take this path. This post-grad was something I wanted for myself, but they were the foundation that kept me steady when I could not carry myself.” 

She also got a lot of support from Queen’s: 

“I had the most understanding lecturers possible and availed of extra support like wellbeing appointments and extensions for assignments when things got too crazy. That is what carried me to the finish line.” 

Her graduation will certainly be an emotional experience. 

Tanisha says: 

“Being a first-generation student means carrying more weight, but it also means breaking more barriers.  Walking across that stage will not feel like one person graduating – it will feel like my entire bloodline walking with me. 

“It will be one of the proudest moments of my life. It will be a promise to my younger self that she was always capable, a thank you to my family for standing by me and a reminder that I turned struggle into strength.”  

Media

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