SHSS Alumnae Link - Sarah Hayes

Welcome to SHSS Alumnae LInk! This is where we connect with past pupils and find out what they’re up to now. This week we linked with Sarah Hayes who graduated in 2011.

Name and position:

Sarah Hayes, UX Researcher and PhD Student, Munster Technological University.

Lives:

Rossmore

Best memory of Sacred Heart:

My favourite memory of my time in secondary school is hard to pick. Trying to answer this question, all sorts of memories crowded in. I thought about my time in Transition Year, racing around the school on random missions, like interviewing the actors in the school play, or surveying other students on their favourite smoothie flavours. I think about chatting with the girls that I am still best friends with to this day, laughing between classes in the creaky old school corridors, Mrs O’Sullivan popping her head out to shush us. I think about a moment in English class when a Wordsworth poem suddenly made perfect sense to me in a way that poetry never had before. I realise I don’t have one favourite memory – I have dozens, hundreds of these joyful little snippets, all strung together in a chain that comprises my time at Sacred Heart.

What were your favourite classes?

I loved English and French above all other subjects. There is no greater indulgence for me than to dissect a novel I’ve just put down. French was another of my favourite subjects. I was lucky enough to go on a French exchange in second year, kindly organised by one of the language teachers at Sacred Heart. It

was my first time travelling alone, and was simultaneously terrifying and exciting.

Tell us about your career progression to date:

After my Leaving Cert, I completed a BA (Hons) degree in Multimedia at CIT. I loved this course, especially my final year project, where I worked with a team of two other girls to design and build an interactive museum exhibit for the Titanic Museum in Cobh. Seeing how much I loved the research and design aspects of

this project, one of my lecturers suggested I think about applying to do a Masters by Research or PhD. I loved this idea, and l put in an application for a funded Masters programme in CIT. Unfortunately, my application was rejected.

Disappointed, I wasn’t sure what else I wanted to do – I had been sure this was the right path for me to take. Feeling aimless, I got a job in an artisan wool-dying factory in Cork. I absolutely loved working there, and learned so much about crafting from my amazing co-workers. One year in to this job, I got a phone call from my former lecturer who had encouraged me to go for a career in research.

He told me about a PhD opportunity that had come up in a European project at CIT, and asked if I would think about applying. I didn’t have to think – I said yes immediately. I went for an interview for the position – and this time I was successful. I started my PhD in November 2016. Since then, I’ve designed learning tools, run user studies, given lectures, published papers, and attended conferences in Sweden, Australia, Scotland and Germany. I’ve also started work as a UX Researcher at the Nimbus Research Centre in MTU, where I help

companies to design and test their software. I’m incredibly lucky to have found work that I love, and would encourage anyone with a curious mind to think about a career in research.

If you weren’t in the job you have, what would you be doing?

If I wasn’t in the job I am, I think I’d be trying to make it as a journalist or writer of some kind. I have always loved writing, and very nearly applied for a creative writing course after the Leaving Cert.

Advice you would give your teenage self:

Try not to worry so much. Nothing is quite as bad as it seems, once you’re out the other side.

Favourite quote or motto?

When I was little and I would get angry over silly things, my Dad would repeat to me, “Water off a duck’s back Sarah, water off a duck’s back”. He would explain how ducks have this oily substance on their feathers that stops them getting wet.

Now, when I’m stuck in traffic or answering annoying work emails, I find myself thinking about those ducks floating in a pond, their feathers dry and fluffy, and somehow I feel calmer.

What is your hidden talent?

I’m not sure I have one! I can bring almost any conversation back to the latest podcast I listened to, does that count?

Huge thanks to Sarah for taking the time to answer our questions.

See you soon for the next instalment of SHSS Alumnae Link.