The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir

by Samantha Power

When she tried to apply to the University College Cork’s medical program, the registrar told her she lacked the background to manage the curriculum. Undeterred, my mother registered anyway. When she got home, one of her sisters lit into her because of the lengthy program’s cost. My mother responded by dumping her plate of bacon, cabbage, and mashed potatoes on her sister’s lap. But she marched back to the college and, livid but shamed, changed her registration to the shorter Bachelor of Science program. After earning that degree, she went on to pursue a PhD in biochemistry in London. But caring for patients was what my mother had always wanted and would never stop wanting; while writing her dissertation, she finally decided to apply to medical school. Thirteen years after first attempting to enroll, she achieved her lifelong dream of becoming a medical doctor. Yet in that courtroom years later, my mother was forced to answer for her career—for being “so educated”—because she was trying to move with her children to the United States, a country she had never visited, in order to get advanced training in her area of specialization, kidney transplantation.