31-05-2025
Student who did not do the Leaving Cert now sets sights on being a heart surgeon
With the Leaving Cert beginning in just a few days, we are hearing from some of the young people who took alternative paths to the CAO points race.
The first of these is a university student from Dublin who did not sit the Leaving Cert but has set his sights on achieving their dream of becoming a heart surgeon.
20-year-old Liam Nugent has wanted to be a doctor since he was a child. But when he was unable to sit his Leaving Cert due to missing so much school, he feared that dream had slipped away.
Liam is autistic and has a chronic anxiety disorder which made attending school very difficult for him.
"Secondary school for me was terrible," he explained. "I think the structure of school was part of it, it's so rigid and it's about learning in a specific way, when there's a million different ways to learn."
When he realised he would not be sitting his exams, he worried about what other people would think of him, and how it could impact his career aspirations.
"I was worried people would think I was stupid, I felt like a failure to be honest," he said.
"I was told it wasn't realistic for me to get into college or university. It was a difficult time for me to figure out what I was going to do with my life because I really just wanted to be a doctor."
Liam's parents helped him to find a path to where he wanted to be.
It began with being accepted into a pre-university science PLC course at Greenhills Community College.
"It was a fresh start, I got to meet new people and get educated in things I'm really interested in," Liam said.
He has just completed second year studying Biotechnology at Dublin City University, and has his next steps mapped out.
"So, it's four years in biotech, then four years of graduate entry medicine, then a two-year residency, and then eight years doing the surgery course in RCSI," he explained.
"People are like, 'This is a crazy commitment.' But when you want something, it's not, really. This is what I want, and this is the pathway."
Liam shared a piece of advice to students ahead of their exams: "If you want to do it, you can do it. There is a route in, no matter what other people say.
