Kyriacos Antoniou

I was born and raised in Cyprus. Growing up, I enjoyed watching soccer with my dad and I would spend a lot of my free time catching up with friends in the neighbourhood and playing video games.

At the age of 6, my parents took me to our local eye doctor for my first eye assessment, and it was then that I realised that I wanted to do something very similar in life.

When I went to high school, I had a strong interest in physics, mathematics, and biology. These subjects, as well as my aspiration to become a healthcare professional, gave me a strong foundation before commencing my Bachelor of Biomedical Science degree in Melbourne.

My interest in eye care was strengthened while growing up as my grandpa was diagnosed with a rare eye condition that caused him to gradually lose his vision over the years. While it might be too late for my grandpa, as a future Orthoptist I aspire to help people in similar situations maintain their vision and educate them on their condition.

During my second year in my bachelor’s degree, I came across the Master of Orthoptics at UTS. As I wanted to do a postgraduate degree that focused on the eye and in healthcare, this course was everything I hoped for.

It’s hard to put everything I have been learning during my masters into a few words. Our subjects give us an in-depth knowledge of the eye and its associated structures, how it functions and how various conditions affect it.

Most importantly, this course gives you everything you need to become a confident healthcare professional through all the practical classes that focus on specialist equipment training, and our clinical placements, which is where our knowledge must be applied in a clinical setting.

Learning about neurological eye conditions and how they can affect the eye is a key part of the degree that I enjoy. In addition, UTS Orthoptics is a relatively small cohort and help is always available when needed.

Completing a postgraduate degree is very challenging, especially when you have a job on the side. Good time management, consistency and being passionate about the field of Orthoptics are the main factors that aid me in reaching my goals.

In the past, online studying was not something that I could imagine myself doing. However, it has somewhat impacted my studies in a positive way as not having to travel to uni every day has given me more time to prepare for lectures before online classes. Our practicals were still running the same way, which gave us a great balance of in-person and online learning.

As I am passionate about paediatrics, as well as performing general Orthoptic assessments and educating patients, I would like to work in a hospital as a clinical Orthoptist in the future. This would give me the opportunity to examine patients with various eye conditions while allowing me to improve my clinical skills and enabling me to become a more experienced healthcare worker.

Doing a post-graduate degree is never easy, especially when it comes to balancing assessments, clinical placements, and lecture content. The best advice I can give to people is to try to be organised, make studying your priority, and with hard work and consistency, anything can be achieved.