‘Irish school was fun’ – Ukrainian girl who got 625 points in Leaving Cert is now off to DCU
A Ukrainian student who fled to Ireland with her mother has received 625 points in her Leaving Cert and accepted an offer to study biomedical engineering at DCU.
Taya Korenska left her native Dnipro for Castlecomer in Co Kilkenny in June 2022 with her mother Olena. Her father Yaroslav and older brother Oleksey remained in Ukraine.
Just a few months later she started at Castlecomer Community School with little spoken English but quickly found her feet and settled in with a group of friends.
She said the move from Dnipro, a city of around one million people, to the peace and quiet of north Kilkenny was a surprisingly welcome adjustment and one that would have been “much harder” without the support of locals Sean and Jacqueline Doheny, who offered her and her mother a home.
“It was the best I could get. After being in a city that’s crowded and very loud, especially considering the circumstances we were living in, being in a quiet, peaceful place was a good change of pace,” she said.
“I’d say I got pretty lucky. Ever since we came to Ireland, everything has been accompanied by luck.”
She said there was also a great deal of luck involved in achieving maximum points in the Leaving Cert, but credit also goes to her previous school back in Ukraine, where students face tough entrance exams and have to maintain high grades to stay.
“It was quite stressful study-wise. We had to be great at every subject, so I was forced to be hard-working and to try hard. But I love studying and learning, that’s why I was still going after that experience,” she said.
Taya could have applied to go to college off the back of completing her studies in Ukraine but decided to see out her time in Irish education “because I liked it so much”.
“Being in school here after what I’d been through in Ukraine was actually pretty fun. I kept telling my friends I was in Irish school for fun,” she said.
After getting used to the quiet of rural Ireland, she said moving to the capital for college will be another tough adjustment.
“I don’t know how I’ll do it because I’ve got used to the peace and quiet.
Now going to the capital city, I’m not sure how I’ll feel there but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”
Very close to her family at home, she remains in constant contact with her father and brother who are immensely proud of her and “relatively safe and sound”.
A self-described “nerd” with a love for science, Taya received H1s in Russian, maths, physics, biology, engineering, and design and communications graphics. Despite arriving in Ireland with little English just two years ago, she took on the higher-level English exam and got an H5.
Having identified biomedical engineering as a “practical” choice” for college – she first considered astrophysics – Taya will now move to DCU with maximum points and having been awarded a No Mind Left Behind scholarship, an initiative providing promising young people access to education.
“I started looking at courses online, found a couple and created a list. I chose the one with the most points required and put it as my first priority because I like something challenging and rewarding,” she said.