Career paths are rarely as linear as we imagine, and Chatteris Tutor Evie Yick knows this better than most. In this post, she takes us along on the journey that has brought her to Hong Kong…

If you are lucky enough, you have known what you wanted to do since you were a child. You got the right grades, went to the right university and came out the other end with the job of your dreams, or something near enough. For some of us however, the battle to ‘figure out what I want to do with my life’ has remained a constant question. As a teenager, I had lots of interests but nothing that stood out enough to make it into a career. When it came to choosing a degree, I finally chose based on my heart and not my head. American History and Literature was a niche topic, but it was something that interested me. There was no direct career path, no job that would fit perfectly afterwards. Back then, I felt like I had all the time in the world to figure it out. I trusted that it would all fall into place somehow. As it turns out, I wasn’t that far off. Since then, life has certainly taken me down interesting and unexpected roads. 

Becoming a teacher was not something I had dreamed of since I was little, but something I fell into naturally. I had volunteered throughout my teenage years in my local library, helping with primary reading challenges, and at both primary and secondary schools my mum had taught in. I enjoyed these experiences, and so teaching seemed the obvious next step. 

Teacher Training, a Masters, and One Global Pandemic Later…

Soon, I completed my teacher training at the University of Birmingham, specialising in Primary Education. It was a fun but challenging year, learning in-depth and in real time, the ins and outs of teaching my own class. My first year in teaching certainly challenged me in ways I did not expect, but I was determined to see the year through. Often throughout this year, I felt at a crossroads – I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to stay in the classroom or find a different role within the education sector. During the spring term, still undecided, I somewhat impulsively applied for a master’s programme in education, and fortunately was accepted to start in the next academic year. This turned out to be one of the best decisions for me, both personally and academically. I pushed myself harder than I had ever done before and to my astonishment, never having considered myself particularly ‘academic’, I really flourished in that environment. Returning to university as a mature student really was a completely different experience, probably one of the best of my life so far. 

In the midst of my master’s programme however, things were about to take a rapid turn. It was now February 2020, and we were beginning to plan for our dissertations. There had been rumblings on the news regarding Covid, but nothing that would have prepared us for what was to come. I had been looking at positions that would have taken me abroad later that year, but as the weeks rolled on, it became apparent none of us would be going anywhere for the foreseeable future. 

As my plans were upended, panic started to set in. When this was all over, what would the job landscape look like? Feeling increasingly worried, I ended up scrolling through teaching job advertisements and spotted a job that seemed like fate, a class teacher position at my old primary school. Though I had some doubts about stepping back into the classroom, I decided to take the plunge. 

I got the job and felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders; I had a job to go to regardless of when things would be going back to ‘normal’. I ended up staying at the school for two years, teaching across upper primary. To be honest, the experience was one of two halves. I found some amazing friends and colleagues but overall, it was not somewhere I felt truly content. I enjoyed the actual teaching but felt increasingly disillusioned with the bureaucracy that came with it. I knew I needed a drastic change, something more than just changing jobs.

Desperate for change, I impulsively applied to an au pairing agency, randomly selecting some countries that had been on my list of places to travel. Only three weeks later, I had met, albeit over Skype, the people who would end up being my surrogate family for the best part of two and a half years. And that was that, I finished my teaching job in July of 2022 and soon found myself on a plane to Rovaniemi, Finland. 

Learning Finnish and the Literal Wilderness of Changing Career Paths

I highly recommend moving to a new country, especially one with a language only spoken by a few million people, if you really want to shake up your life. It is safe to say I had no idea what to expect. Despite the sub-zero temperatures, it was exactly the tonic I needed. I was only meant to stay for a year, but I knew that Finland still had so much more to offer and I was not ready to go home yet. 

The nature in Finland is truly unlike anything I had ever witnessed before. Particularly in the midst of winter, when the permanent snow has blanketed everything, making the landscape unrecognisable. It was truly spellbinding and I wanted to spend as much time out there as possible. My host dad had told me about a wilderness guide course he had taken when he was younger, in the far north of Finland. It sounded incredible. There was only one issue – it was all in Finnish. My Finnish at that point was conversational at best, so I didn’t have much hope. Having nothing to lose, I applied anyway and left it up to fate. After muddling through a bilingual interview rather successfully, I found out I had been placed on a waiting list. 

Months later, I had written off the course as a pipe dream and was beginning to accept that my time in Finland was coming to an end. Then one morning in late May, the snow finally thawing and a taste of spring in the air, an email came through letting me know I had been successfully accepted onto the course. I was initially ecstatic but panic quickly set in once again when I realised I only had two months to sort out a new residence permit and find somewhere to live in rural northern Finland. I was about to leave the safety net of my surrogate family behind, and on top of that, study for twelve months in Finnish. 

The year that followed can only be described as an absolute whirlwind of activity, from learning fjell skiing, to how to correctly gut and fillet a freshly caught fish. I pushed myself beyond any capabilities I thought I had and nearly reached my limit on several occasions, but I am so glad I persevered through it. After successfully completing my course and graduating as a wilderness guide, I spent winter 2024-25 as an arctic guide in Rovaniemi. I am fortunate enough to say that I have seen the northern lights more times than I can count, and not once did they ever get old. I think sometimes we can take for granted what we have experienced and it becomes so ‘normal’ in our minds, but every now and then I am reminded of how lucky I am to have had those opportunities. I honestly wish more people could experience the same thing; it only takes being brave for a few minutes to change your life. I truly believe that pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone is the only way you can really learn about yourself. Nothing easy is worth doing. 

A Hong Kong Homecoming, Chatteris Educational Foundation, and the Path Back to the Classroom

As was becoming a pattern, after almost three years in Finland I felt the familiar itch of change creeping up on me. But this time it was not because I wanted to escape something, I just genuinely felt ready to move on. Hong Kong was always inevitable for me. My dad was born and raised there, half of my cultural identity belonged there, and my brother had been living there whilst I had been in Finland. And again, despite writing off the classroom years before, I found myself leaning back towards it. They say distance makes the heart grow fonder!

Applying to Chatteris Educational Foundation was the obvious choice for me, my brother had chosen to work with them when he first moved to Hong Kong and had met some incredible friends throughout his experience. That was what I knew I needed this time around. I knew I had to have a support network there if I was to really feel settled. I could cope with everything else if I had that. 

Flash forward to now, it is February 2026. I have spent the last six months settling into city life, relearning how to teach, and meeting a whole new bunch of people. Does it feel like I am starting all over again? Sometimes, but having done it before, I know I will be alright. I was apprehensive, being older than the average English tutor working for Chatteris, but if anything, it has helped me to adapt. I am not learning everything from scratch, instead fine tuning skills I already had. It has taken me a long time to trust my gut, and it has often felt scary to make so many changes and jump from one career to another, but I would not change a thing. Straying from the path does not mean you have failed. In nature, a path is rarely straightforward and simple, so why should your career and the life you build around it be any different? 

Searching for an adventure on a new path? Click here to take the first step on your journey and apply to make a difference for Hong Kong students on the Chatteris International Graduate Programme