Award-winning author, journalist and podcaster Dolly Alderton has received an honorary degree from the University of Exeter, saying: “it feels like that is what I was destined for”.

Dolly Alderton graduated from the University of Exeter in 2009 with a BA in English and Drama. She reminisced about her time as a student during her speech, stating that it was “a very different world then”.

I can remember [graduation] so clearly, that sense of being on the edge of life and on the edge of the world

Honorary graduate Dolly Alderton

In 2020, Ms. Alderton became an agony aunt for The Sunday Times in her column, Dear Dolly. In 2018, her memoir Everything I Know About Love won a National Book Award for Autobiography of the Year. It was adapted into a BBC television series in 2022. Her first novel, Ghosts, was published in 2020.

Ms. Alderton also reflected on the reputation of Humanities degrees. “When I was graduating,” she said, “there was a rather cynical belief that Humanities degrees are pointless. We were told constantly that [English and Drama degrees] don’t matter in the real world”.

“Now, I’ve been in the ‘real world’ for 13 years so, please, let me tell you that they do matter. Stories matter. Writers matter. Art matters. It heals us, it helps us empathise, it helps us understand each other. Stories change the world”.