A recent graduate of Edinburgh Napier University has said that studying for his degree is what gave him the confidence to find his voice after a stammer left him unable to speak.
Lee Sturrock, 28, spent years working as an offshore electrical technician in the oil and gas industry before deciding a degree at Edinburgh Napier would help him progress his career.
At the same time, he resolved to tackle a stammer so severe he had come to rely on typing notes on his phone just to communicate – even with colleagues and family.
During his studies, Lee, from Arbroath, undertook speech therapy through the McGuire Programme and grew steadily in confidence, eventually putting himself forward as class representative for his cohort as a way of pushing himself further.
The degree also took him further afield than he expected. Last summer, Lee secured a three-month internship in Toronto with construction firm Black & McDonald, working in electrical engineering on projects including data centres, a subway station and an electric vehicle battery factory.
Now Lee is celebrating how far he has come, after graduating with a BEng in Electrical & Electronic Engineering at a ceremony in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall.
“I have a huge feeling of personal accomplishment,” he said. “If you told me at the start that this is what I’d achieve, I wouldn’t have believed it.”
Lee described how, before starting speech therapy, everyday conversations felt impossible.
“Before I took my speech therapy course, I said everything through my phone. I would use the notes app and type it all out — with work, even family members. I genuinely couldn’t get a word out.”
It’s a striking contrast with the physical risks he faced in his offshore career.
“I’ve done a lot of scary things in my career offshore. I’ve been on so many helicopters, jumped into a speedboat, been hauled off the side of a ship and worked with high voltage. Hand on heart, for me, stopping a stranger for directions or asking where the bananas are in Tesco was scarier.”
Lee decided to confront his stammer at the same moment he committed to his studies. “When I applied for university, I knew that addressing my stammer would be part of it.
“I got my offer through while I was working on a boat in the South China Sea, and I realised there that this next chapter would be about the degree and my speech.”
He credits the McGuire Programme with giving him practical tools as well as a shift in mindset. “I enrolled on something called the McGuire Programme, which helped me understand breathing techniques and ways I could manage to speak. It also taught me a lot about attitude and self-acceptance.”
Balancing that personal journey with a demanding engineering degree wasn’t easy, he said. “It’s been a story of perseverance. When I started the degree it was difficult, but I kept going and soon saw results.
“For both the speech therapy and university, my work ethic pulled me through. All these things have grown my confidence. I have become everything I wanted to be during my four years at Edinburgh Napier.”
Lee, who completed an HNC as part of his apprenticeship but had not studied for four years before starting his degree, said the course felt like a natural next step.
“It seemed like the next progression. I really got into the projects aspect of what I was doing before, but there wasn’t an opportunity to progress.”
He singled out his lecturers for particular thanks, praising their industry experience. “Engineering is a tough degree, but the department was really good.
“The lecturers were phenomenal — you can tell they have worked in the industry before and not just academia. That’s so good from a student’s perspective because they are so practical and pragmatic.”
Lee says the skills and experience he has gained at Edinburgh Napier have put him in a strong position to compete for top jobs in the sector as he looks to take his career to the next level.
He graduated alongside fellow students from the university’s School of Computing, Engineering & the Built Environment, with Edinburgh Napier’s summer graduation ceremonies running at the Usher Hall from 8-10 July.
