A South Wales college learner has earned an impressive set of A-level results after balancing her studies with training new employees at a fast food restaurant to help keep the public fed during the coronavirus pandemic.
Ciara Bibey, 19, is set to head to the University of Birmingham in September to study Dental Hygiene and Therapy after receiving two A*s in biology and psychology and two Bs in chemistry and Welsh baccalaureate following her busy academic year.
She hopes her studies will take her from flipping burgers at her local McDonalds to making sure people’s teeth and gums are in tip top shape as well as offering cosmetic treatments like teeth whitening.
Ciara, from Maerdy, switched from studying at a traditional sixth form to taking qualifications at Coleg y Cymoedd after deciding she would benefit from a different environment to school and believing college would better prepare her for university.
The talented learner was surprised to do as well as she did in her results following the year of interruptions and uncertainty resulting from the pandemic, as well as the difficulty balancing her part-time job training people to help keep the community fed at a time when McDonalds was one of the few restaurants open.
She said: “During my studies I was working full-time in McDonalds as I was trying to save up for university. I was responsible for training people as part of my role and as McDonalds was one of the few restaurants open at one point during the pandemic, everyone was coming to us so we had to get loads of new staff in and trained.
“I was trying to juggle my shifts there with college work which was quite hard and stressful, but it was worth it. The college was really supportive. When we were in lockdown we would have two-hour lessons online instead of just being sent a worksheet or something, and tutors actually spoke to us regularly instead of emailing over work. It helped massively.”
On her desire to work in the dental industry, Ciara said: “I always wanted to do something with dentistry, but I didn’t want to be an actual dentist because of the five years it takes at university. I was speaking to my orthodontist who said his wife was a dental hygienist and therapist and loved her job. I researched it and thought ‘I want to do that’.”
