Optometry wasn’t Aleksandra’s first choice of career, but it’s one that continues to pay dividends for her – professionally and personally. “It’s allowed me to do things I never thought I would be able to do,” she says.  

After 11 years in the automotive industry, she explains, “I was at a point where I felt I had done as much as I could in the job I was doing, and I didn’t feel I could progress much further.”

It was, in fact, a routine eye exam that prompted Aleksandra to explore optometry as a second career. “One conversation led to another,” she says. “I rang the admissions tutors at the University of Bradford, went in for a chat, applied and was accepted.”

Admittedly, returning to study in her early 30s was daunting and a financial sacrifice. “I had to do an access course because I had no science background, but that was a good introduction back into studying,” she explains. 

“One of my motivations for choosing optometry was that although I didn’t know an awful lot about it, I felt it was a career where if I wanted to do a little bit more studying, I could.” 

Aleksandra graduated from Bradford in 2007 and was awarded a PhD by the same institution in 2013 for a study of blur adaptation in human vision – something she never thought she’d undertake. 

“Over two summers, I worked on undergraduate research projects members of staff were offering that were sponsored by the College,” she says. “There was a project that evolved in the second summer that allowed me to come back and work as a postgraduate student.”