Poly grads hitting their goals despite deteriorating vision

08 May 2019

Article featured SP graduands Shirleen Goh Hui Qi and Nicholas Tan Jiale. Shirleen, who is from the diploma in interior design, was born with cone-rod dystrophy – which causes deterioration of the cone and rod photoreceptor cells in the retina. Her vision started deteriorating when she was 10, and she had to hold her phone in front of her face and magnify the screen to see words. Diagrams also have to be drawn with a marker because she has difficulty seeing drawings in pencil. But that has not deterred Shirleen from pursuing her dream of being an interior designer. On the other hand, Nicholas, who is from the diploma in visual communications and media design, was formally diagnosed with Stargardt disease during his first year in poly. The disease causes progressive damage to the central portion of the retina, and Nicholas only has 70 per cent of his vision left. Despite that, he is still pushing on and hopes to be a director of photography and create visual content for media companies. COMMS Note: This is part of our Graduation 2019 stories. 
[The New Paper, Online]