Paul Hooi - A Personal Experience ( Irish Times Article)
Choosing to leave an excellent job as a mechanical engineer with good prospects, for another 5 years as a dental student at TCD was met with mixed views from family friends & acquaintances, and it’s probably fair to say most thought I was mad!
Even as an engineering student, I had a strong interest in pursuing a career in healthcare, & I knew I’d like to eventually progress in that direction. My first engineering job was as an equipment engineer with a semiconductor company in Singapore, before returning to full time education again to complete a master’s degree in engineering at Queen’s University. After that I worked with an engineering software company in Germany & Ireland. I was aware of the fact that so many people persevere in jobs that fail them for one reason or another. But I was happy with engineering, & made a conscious decision to put to good use the training I’d received.
I had the exciting opportunity to embark on an interesting project as a research & development engineer with medical device start-up company. The combination of engineering & medical science together with the clinical exposure gained with a great team of engineers, clinicians & directors, provided a welcome inspiration to go back to college. For most people, changing jobs is cloaked in secrecy, but I was delighted to receive full & open support from work colleagues & senior management alike, even ahead of the lengthy application process.
I perceive the change as a progression, of sorts. Although most friends in the engineering industry agreed the scope of engineering in Ireland is relatively limited, I chose to leave engineering not because I didn’t like it, but because there were more things I wanted to pursue. Medical device engineering was thoroughly enjoyable & I was genuinely enthusiastic about my work, but I chose dentistry because I had always wanted to do something clinical, hands-on & technically challenging.
Returning to college to study dentistry is a very fortunate privilege, & it also provides an immediate opportunity to reciprocate a service to the community that has allowed for my good fortune either directly or indirectly. For me, there were 3 key factors in deciding to return to college; finance, time & probably most important of all, motivation. I knew I wanted to do it, & that was an excellent start. I was acutely aware of the commitment required to go the distance. 5 yrs without a regular income, lots more exams to pass, even homework! In addition, sidelining an engineering career without securing the next step & no assurance of either a qualification or a job was a potentially risky move in itself.
If I wasn’t decisive & determined, I knew it just wouldn’t work. Time & money to proceed would be pointless without honest motivation. It would be impossible to convince an interview panel of the strength of my conviction if I didn’t truly want a place. I made an effort to meet face to face & talk to lots of people with different perspectives & opinions, in order to challenge my own conviction & help clarify my thoughts.
Most mature students are eligible for financial support under the free fees initiative, but not degree holders. Applicants that are categorised both as mature students & graduates would not be first time undergraduate students, hence don’t qualify for free fees even if they paid full fees for their first primary degree before the introduction of the initiative by the HEA in 1995. Banks generally aren’t familiar with the specific needs of graduate students in this context, and when you consider the cost of living & fees over the duration of the course, you may not have much change out of €100,000 for a 5 yr course! It hasn’t turned out to be beans & toast every day, but it certainly helps to be frugal. How a situation is perceived generally affects how you handle it, so it can help to be somewhat comfortable with accumulating debt!
Returning to college is not an option that suits everyone. On balance, the change makes complete sense for me, but for others I can see how it might be perceived as ludicrous, if not somewhat indulgent. I didn’t leave my job because I didn’t like it, I left because there were more things I wanted to do. Returning to an undergraduate course in Ireland as a mature graduate student at the expense of a fantastic career would generally be perceived as unconventional & risky. I’d have to agree, it probably is. It’s easy to justify anything to yourself, but I’m happy with my decision & it’s the best unconventional risk I’ve decided to take so far!