Associate Professor Eric Chow

Pro Chancellor, presiding Vice Chancellor, presiding Dean, presiding Director, members of the University Executive and Academic Board, staff, family, friends and, importantly, graduates of 2019, good morning. Before I start, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land which the UTS campus stand, the Gadigal people of the Eora nation.

My heartfelt congratulations to all 2019 graduates here today. Well done on the hard work that you have done over the last few years. It has been a tough and long journey, but you have made it through and graduated. And also, congratulations to all the parents, families, friends and their loved ones who are serving with you today. They’ve been supporting you tremendously to overcome challenges throughout the journey. I would also like to thank UTS for this invitation. It’s my honour to have this opportunity to give the occasional address today.

Congratulations is probably the most common word that you’ve heard today, but do you actually know the meaning? I’ve actually looked up the dictionary and it actually said, ‘Congratulations is the word explaining one’s praise for an achievement or good wishes on a special occasion.’ But I think most of the time we’ve been focusing on how to celebrate for the achievement, like thinking about what’s the best posture, what’s the best venue to take your graduation photos, or even thinking about which restaurant to go after the ceremony.

However, another component of congratulations, which is the good wishes, has always been neglected. It’s all about good wishes and good fortune for today. Many people think graduation is simply a completion, and probably in your heart you say, ‘Yes! No more uni!’ I can’t say this is wrong, but at least this doesn’t apply to me because I’ve never left uni since I finished my bachelor at UTS 10 years ago. I did my master and PhD and now working at the university. I always considered graduations is a reflection and also a turning point. It’s a moment of recognising your outstanding achievement and also celebrating new knowledge gained. You should be very proud of what you have achieved today.

However, this is also a moment to reflect what is next. What am I going to do with my degree and how can I do well in my career? So, today I would like to spend a few minutes to share some of my experience with you and it needs to be of value to you for your future career or studies.

I did the Bachelor of Forensic Biology at UTS 10 years ago, and after completing my undergraduate, decided to leave my family in Sydney and move back to my home town, Hong Kong, to build up my career. I was very fortunate that I got the job straight away on the second day I arrived Hong Kong and working as a scientist at the university.

At that time, I felt like the title ‘scientist’ sounds really cool, and everything happened so quickly and smoothly. But after six months, I just feel like I lost direction. I was employed as a scientist but most of my work was basically just washing the test tube, cleaning the lab benches and cleaning lab machines. I keep asking myself, ‘Is this what I want? Can I actually do a bit more than this?’ I started talking to other people, asking them for advice. While working in Hong Kong, I got a very good mentor who is also a scientist and an academic. He was very supportive and advised me to do a master if I want to make some changes. This bring me to the first point that is very important: to find a good mentor; not one, but more than one, that you trust who can mentor and support you. They have lots of personal experience and successful stories that they can share with you that can inspire and motivate you. They can always direct you to the right direction and to help you to build your career or achieve your goal. I’m very lucky that I have a few around me. If you don’t have one, I strongly recommend you to find one today.

My second lesson is don’t say no before you try as you never know. So, I took my mentor’s advice and moved back to Sydney to do my master’s in bioinformatics. So, for those who don’t know bioinformatics, it’s a multi-disciplinary field that combines biology, biostatistics, computer science and information technology. That sounds quite a lot to me at that time.

Before I did my master, I have never thought of being an academic and researcher. I did remember when I was a year three undergraduate student, my friend asked me, ‘Eric, are you going to do honours next year?’ I directly replied and say, ‘No way.’ At that time, I thought research is going to be dull, going to be boring, and I’m not going to do this.

After I complete my master, it was also the first time that I got involved in the research project. It actually completely changed my mind. I really enjoyed doing research and you will feel excited when you can solve some puzzles. We study science and I think we should be open minded, considering all the possibilities, thinking outside the box and you will achieve much more than expected.

My current work is mainly focused on sexually transmittable infection and I’ve been examining an anti-bacterial mouthwash to prevent gonorrhoea in the throat. Three years ago, my boss and I was very excited that we were the first to see the results showing mouth wash can kill the infection in the throat. We were very enthusiastic about our discovery and submitted our paper to the top journal in the field, but the paper got rejected. I think all scientists always have a dream of winning a Nobel Prize or making a breakthrough discovery that can change the world. Unfortunately, failures and rejections are common in science. For example, our experiment failed, our manuscript got rejected, we don’t have funding to support our research.

This linked to the third lesson that I want to bring up, is we need to learn accepting failure before we succeed. We need to learn why we’ve failed. Self-reflection is very important in order to understand previous failure or mistakes. A failure doesn’t mean always a failure. For the mouthwash work that I have just mentioned, I couldn’t remember how many journals we’ve tried to submit to, and of course, we eventually find one to publish. But after the paper was published, the paper received huge media coverage and had been featured in different news outlets globally, and we were successfully received further funding to do a bigger trial today. We also received numerous research awards recognising our novel discovery.

One of my favourite quotes from Thomas Edison is, ‘Many of life’s failures are people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up.’ This is very important in science, that you need to be passionate. Don’t give up and keep trying to succeed. Remember to ask and seek for advice from your peers and mentors. They’re always the good source for you to start with. Remember to be resilient, passionate and keep thinking. Think outside the box, think differently to have innovative and creative ideas and this is a very important point and component in science. Remember to be prepared to fail, but don’t give up and try again. When you walk out this door today it’s going to be a new chapter for you tomorrow. Some of you may go back to your home country, some of you may work overseas, all of you may be scattered across the world. However, I think we’re very lucky in the 21st century with great technology and social media. UTS alumni is a great network; we have alumni members in 120 countries. Stay connected with UTS alumni, share your experience, successful stories and achievements to our alumni members. You may also find your mentor through the alumni network. I’m sure we’d all love to hear again from you.

Thank you, and all the best.