Poly grads hitting their goals despite deteriorating vision
Shirleen Goh and Nicholas Tan are making moves in media and design even with deteriorating vision
They may be losing their vision, but these graduating students from Singapore Polytechnic (SP) have not lost sight of their goals.
Miss Shirleen Goh Hui Qi, 21, hopes to become an interior designer. She was born with cone-rod dystrophy, which causes deterioration of the cone and rod photoreceptor cells in the retina.
Mr Nicholas Tan Jiale, 23, is an aspiring photographer with Stargardt disease, which causes progressive damage to the central portion of the retina.
Miss Goh is graduating from SP today while Mr Tan will be graduating tomorrow.
On his 19th birthday, Mr Tan's mother bought him his first camera, a Nikon D5500. He won the Canon PhotoMarathon Singapore XIV 2016 competition with it.
He told The New Paper: "I almost cried when I shared the results with my mum. It makes me happy to see her happy."
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Mr Tan won a 10-day trip to Japan, where he competed with other top photographers in Asia. He even had the honour of being mentored by esteemed photographer Goto Aki.
Mr Tan's vision problems started in secondary school but he only sought professional help when he could not see the words on the projector screen in SP.
He estimates that he has only 70 per cent of his vision left. But this does not deter him.
Mr Tan said: "I want to be a director of photography and create visual content for media companies."
He currently has a diploma in visual communications and media design.
Miss Goh's vision started deteriorating when she was 10. She has to hold her phone in front of her face and magnify the screen to see words. Diagrams have to be drawn with a marker because she has difficulty seeing drawings in pencil.
But that has not deterred Miss Goh, who holds a diploma in interior design.
She said: "I find interior design very interesting and rewarding. You get to understand people's needs and habits before designing their homes."
For her final-year project, she designed a cafe that sells 3D-printed food and has an open-concept kitchen for customers to see their meals being printed.
She hopes to find a job upon graduation.
Miss Goh said: "I think design is more about experience than a certificate and I hope to gain more of it by working straight after poly."
To others in similar circumstances, she urged: "Don't think about what you cannot do but rather what you can do."
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