Michael Hutchinson

I joined the course the summer before University in 2009.

I remember throughout school I always tried and failed to hide my stammer with substitutions and filler words to make myself ‘more fluent.’ I think my brain had trained itself to oppress all negative speaking memories, therefore I’m struggling to find any worthy examples.

The one thing that became apparent from my first course was that I was not alone in my struggles. Once you join you integrate into a community of people who have been through the exact same anxieties and personal battles and you help each other progress and grow into the people you want to be.

I am now living in London about to start a new job in the city and I can honestly say that having a stammer became positive in my (many) interviews after University. I was told to turn all negatives into positives on my CV. The one thing that shines through with McGuire is the positivity being passed around each and every person I meet on a course. Having a stammer helps you stand out in a crowd, especially in the graduate job pool. I learnt to tell employers about my struggles and my newfound successes in a positive and articulate fashion, something I thought I could never do.