Alumni Stories Catherine Bates
‘You will make sense of both your achievements and disappointments with the benefit of hindsight.’
Name: Catherine Bates
Current Career: Community Engagement in Higher Education
Graduation Year: 1994 (BA), 1999 (MA)
Discipline(s): Craft Design, History of Art and Design, Sociology
Location: Dublin
What career path did you want to follow as a child?
I had a lot of ideas for careers as a child – I wanted to be everything from a teacher to a lawyer to a fashion designer!
Why did you decide to study at National College of Art & Design?
I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do but I really enjoyed art and design, so I felt the general First Year course would help me to decide. I was also offered a place through the CAO on my choice of academic programme, but I felt I would try art and design for a year and, if I didn’t enjoy it, then I could switch programme the following year.
But before the end of First Year, I heard about the Joint Honours degree programme and decided that was the one for me.
How did you develop your career towards your current job / practice?
I’ve had quite an organic career path – I didn’t particularly set out to work in community engagement. When I finished college I worked as an assistant goldsmith, and then I worked part-time at the National Gallery of Ireland’s education department, where I realised that I really enjoyed lecturing and working with people.
I returned to NCAD as a part-time lecturer in design history and theory and did my Masters at the same time. I lectured for 10 years and completed a PhD in the sociology of consumption – I had always found people’s interaction with designed objects very interesting.
After that I worked as an adult education coordinator in a women’s drug rehabilitation centre, and in 2008 I joined DIT (now TU Dublin) as coordinator of a new programme to support community-engaged learning. The role is an interesting combination of my community and lecturing work – it isn’t specifically related to art and design, but my work is about developing and improving systems to enable community engagement, so I’ve transferred my design skills from the arena of metals to that of human interaction. This is where I still draw on my learning from NCAD.
What is the one experience during your time at NCAD that has informed you most in your career / work to date?
I think for me the overall sense of challenge which permeated my NCAD education, the emphasis on problem-solving and on making connections between things and ideas, is what shaped my career most.
I particularly remember an 8-week course in sociology in First Year – I remember feeling really stretched by the theories and ideas in it. We were also taught a brilliant module on the History of Art History by art historian Catherine Marshall, which was superbly critical of received knowledge, situating everything in its social context. We had so many great studio lecturers who encouraged and challenged us to interrogate our ideas.
There was a fantastic culture of discussion, of sharing and critiquing of ideas at NCAD, both in history and theory sessions and in the design studio, which has really informed all my teaching and education work.
If you were chatting with current NCAD students today what is the one piece of advice you would offer?
I would say that you’ve made a great choice of college course, and you’re getting the best possible foundation for a future career – the transferrable skills you’re learning will stand to you no matter what career you end up in. Be open to possibilities – you never know what new and interesting opportunities will come your way, and you will make sense of both your achievements and disappointments with the benefit of hindsight.
