Dr Bao Nguyen

I decided to study the Graduate Certificate in Adolescent Health and Wellbeing just prior to taking maternity leave (for my second child). I had been working as a lecturer and researcher in the Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences at the University of Melbourne (UoM), and my research work was taking a new direction (from studying healthy ageing, to exploring the other end of the life spectrum – children and adolescents). I knew that maternity leave would be an ideal time for me to think rather than do, so I was prepared to absorb new learnings and be open-minded, to influence the ‘why’ of my research trajectory.

The Graduate Certificate was ideal as it was fully online and flexible, which is critically important when you are juggling a young family. As far as I could tell, there were no other offerings specifically related to adolescent health and wellbeing – so it was a no-brainer to apply for the UoM course. It also helped that I was familiar with the UoM systems, being an educator at UoM myself.

I liked that the course was flexible and my colleagues/peers were from many different fields – it was so interesting to hear about everyone’s experiences. I also liked that our individual backgrounds shaped our course experience – I was interested in the health promotion side of the course, and for one of my final assessments, I used a “real-world” and current scenario to promote a program to empower primary school teachers to increase time spent outdoors for adolescents (an important factor that may help combat the rising prevalence of myopia or short-sightedness). Developing skills in writing a feasible and innovative project proposal has been particularly applicable for my career, when applying for grants and funding for projects with real-world impact.

It was a proud moment to simply finish the course on time and without too much interruption with a baby in tow. Our second child was born on the first day of semester (he came earlier than expected) and was 8 months old when I handed in the final assignment. He and I shared plenty of late nights and early mornings ‘reading’ course notes together. As the first optometrist to have completed this course, I hope to continue this field of enquiry into adolescence and bring this critical period of life and development to the forefront of our attention as optometrists and vision scientists.