Well, here I am again.

If you don’t know me, I’m Adam, Edinburgh College Students’ Association President, and I have been re-elected for a second and final year, otherwise I would be deemed as a dictator of some sorts.

I don’t particularly like to toot my own horn, but recently I have looked back on my rather short life of two decades, 20 years to be exact. And I have been looking at everything I have achieved so far… I wrote two novels with 50,000+ words and have an undying determination to finish a Pentalogy of books.  

During that time, I was in high school, where my school suffered a devastating fire and then thrust into the COVID years just in time for my exams.  

My last three years of high school (AKA my exam years) were then severely compromised and quite frankly I came out of high school taking anything to show for it as an achievement.  

I did a year in Edinburgh College commuting two hours to college every day and was voted in as Student President in March 2024, while studying an art foundation course.  

Being in that role added quite a lot to my ‘list’ of achievements: being a Board Member of a business and institution worth millions at 19 years old, creating a new democratic system, and chairing a Board of Trustees for the Student Association’s charitable endeavours.

So, I guess I look at those and think I’ve done pretty well for a twenty-year-old with a crippling imposter syndrome. And yes, despite me listing all my achievements, I do have an imposter syndrome and people can reassure me every day, or show me that list on a daily occurrence, but it will always be a battle daily to fight of the demons in my head saying I can’t do something. I may have just made you feel like your Student President is cripplingly unconfident but also a raging narcissist in a few lines, but what I am trying to say is I was able to achieve all these things with something always mentally trying to hold me back daily, because of just having simple sheer undying determination, and if I can do that… I believe that you the students can do absolutely anything.

In the last year, I created the Lead Reps system, giving back more power to the students in their learning and I hope to build on this more in the next year, allowing students to get involved with more politics and decision making.

I am also gearing up to be way more involved in national representation, as this is something I'm wanting to improve on this year. But as a Scottish Parliamentary Election is coming up soon, I believe that this is the crucial time to act. So, watch this space as I'll need you, the students of Edinburgh College, to help me achieve these goals. 

Hope to see you soon!