Overqualified: Kate Perrott, Masters in Law: Her part-time job was her passion

Kate Perrott has a degree in law and German and a masters in e-law from UCC. Disenchanted by law, she was waitressing in Cork when she met Geoffrey Cashman, a photography graduate.

They now run their own café, Tara’s Tea Rooms, in the city.

“I graduated with my masters in 2007. A lot of people, after an LLM or LLB, go straight into Blackhall or King’s Inns exams. I just got swept up in that without giving it much thought.

“After doing a couple of days’ work experience in a city-centre law firm, and the difficulty and the cost associated with the Fe1s, I got a bit dismayed by the whole thing. I passed three Fe1s and I couldn’t go back. I suppose I wasn’t used to failure. I had always done really well through school, and my masters. I think I just figured ‘it’s just not for me’.

“I had a good year and a half of ‘what am I going to do?’. It was around that time I was working in a restaurant with Geoffrey in Douglas. I suppose when you’re 27 and you’re still waitressing, people are asking when you’re going to knuckle down and get a proper job.”

While waiting tables by day, she took a night course in HR in Cork Institute of Technology.

“It was halfway through my second year, that our plans for the Tea Room really got off the ground.”

They opened in December 2013.

After finding her passion was her part-time job, Kate says it’s better to do what you enjoy.

“In school I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Someone told me I should do law because I liked English and history.

“I’d say don’t be afraid to voice your interest or dream in something. When Geoffrey said it to me first about our own place I said ‘are you serious?’. But, when I said it to my family, they all said they’d always imagined I’d open my own cafe.