Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Growing up in high rise flats and council houses in Dublin, Ireland, in the 1970s and 1980s was rarely a pathway to a life in academia. When you arrived at the point in your life when you were about to leave formal schooling and make decisions for your future, there were many roads you could take, but the road to academia was viewed as something completely out of reach for people from my background. This chapter will recount how this author’s journey into academia began much later in life, through a series of accidents, or perhaps what might be termed as ‘fate’. This is a story of how a love of learning was suppressed through the education systems in place at that time and how a chance opportunity allowed this love to blossom, in spite of serious obstacles such as undiagnosed dyslexia, imposter syndrome and financial barriers. Join me on my rollercoaster journey through further education, from a computer course to Level 3 and 5 awards, which in turn led into higher education which traversed the full gamut of stages from a Level 7 Certificate to a PhD. It will be clear that my background, accent and culture were not ones that blended easily with the dominant middle-class student cohort and lecturing staff, whose unconscious bias could have caused me to give up the ghost early, had it not been for an insatiable thirst for knowledge and a belief that I could overcome the serious impediments placed in my way.</jats:p>