In June, Year 12s from Bendigo Senior Secondary School came to check out the Swinburne Hawthorn campus and find out more about our university. The students took part in a workshop with current Swinburne media, journalism and design students Kristie Giblin, Jessica Pantou, Jay-Dee Pitcaithly and Connie Thuy to write for The Burn magazine. We asked them to write about their Past, Present or Future. This is what they came up with!
Sitting here in a classroom full of computers, being told about how great Swinburne University is, I can’t help but feel that it may be the university for me. Its smaller lecture sizes and Industry Based Learning has really sold it for me but what about the course content? Is Swinburne really the university I want to be at to study science? Do I even want to study science? Do I even want to go to university?
These questions run circles in my head, around and around, until I get dizzy from thinking about them. Do I want to leave the place I’ve called home for 17 and a half years? What will I do when I finish my university course, if that’s what I end up doing? What if the only reason I’m considering Swinburne is because I already have a conditional offer here?
That last question already has an answer. I know that the only reason I’m here on this ‘welcome day’ is because I have that offer. I never would have considered it previously, however as stated earlier, it seeming to become more and more likely that it will be my first preference.
Name: Zoe Smith
It’s hard to think about the difficulties of living away from home while I am comfortably living off of my parent’s wealth. I suppose it’s more the excitement of the change, the idea that you will be in control. You can eat when you want, sleep when you want and leave when you want. But there’s also the uncertainty in being your own boss. The sense of security you get from living with your parent will be gone. Suddenly you’re the only one in control of all your decisions, successes and achievements, but also all off your mistakes. At the moment, moving away from home is the most exciting part of leaving. Not the actual living away from home. Packing up all my things and sorting out what I’ll need in my new life; compartmentalising my life into neat little boxes. Those boxes are like the symbol for the final step in growing up.
Name: Mel Wells
I have had many exciting experiences in my life and one of which was traveling overseas to Fiji to work in a school with children. I went over there last year to work with children teaching them English and also being able to teach them how to swim at the beach I felt I achieved a lot in as I was able to change the lives of children and I also got to experience a culture completely different to my own.
I am not a person that enjoys stepping out of my comfort zone so moving away from home is something that scares me a little. I have lived in my house my whole life and it is my comfort zone so while it is scary I do look forward to moving out of home though and starting my own new stage of life.
Swinburne is a university that I am just starting to get to learn about and am realising that it is a university that would suit me and how I learn. I am the type of person that needs help a lot so by Swinburne offering they type of environment that can provide that for me is great.
In 5 years I want to be working in the photography industry, learning all the tricks of the trade so that I can later take them on board so that when I open my own studio in later life I will know how it all works and be as successful as possible.
Name: Stephanie King
Since I was young I loved arts and creative writing, though I was pretty bad at both.
I’m excited to leave home; Melbourne is an interesting city full of many different people and different cultures.
Swinburne seems to be a good Uni. But you can’t really tell till you get there.
In 5 years I suspect I’ll be an unemployed artist who lives off black coffee and instant meals. I’ll have a cat that doesn’t actually live in my apartment (which I’m illegally renting from my cousin) but I feed her so she likes me. I’ll spend my days painting abstract portraits of the cat and writing morbid short stories.
Name: Teagan Watson
Presently I am sitting at a computer. Deciding my future? Overwhelmed . . . I think so! Though the break has been refreshing from six hours of double periods, I still feel a little tentative about my future, and not just my distant future, but my immediate one. Sure – exams in November, schoolies, summer break, time off my past year as a slave excites my being – the prospect of post-school tertiary education no doubt frightens me. Yet I take heart! Revelling in the fact that this tumultuous year of intense cramming and damn hard work will take me somewhere in life. So I continue to sit. Contemplating, waiting – freely accepting my future after year 12 to be filled with all that I will make life to be. And tonight? I shall return to my abode. Converse with my parentals on the journey I have undertaken today. Looking to many more University open days and O week and even my first day in March next year; as a new season in my life, where I know the skills I have refined in this year of study will push me in my future studies, and career . . . wherever I choose!
Name: Jayden Bloomfield and Kale Smythe
An exciting experience from the past:
I have had many exciting experiences in my life however one that truly stands out was meeting Matt Bellamy, the lead singer and guitarist of the band Muse. It was a very joyous occasion and was a huge goal I set in my life. I met him at Melbourne airport where there were many eager fans awaiting his arrival. I managed to get a precious photo with him after waiting over an hour as many fans had lined up.
Thoughts about leaving home:
Leaving home is a new experience for many adults. It’s hard to grasp an outlook on what the experience may hold until we are put in the position. I guess I look forward to the independence of moving away from home and the new experiences we will gain from it.
As one of my fellow companions has mentioned today… “Swinburne looks like a pretty swell school” and I too am starting to channel this same opinion as we both have interests in the health science field.
In 5 years I hope to be beginning a successful career after successfully completing my further studies.
Name: Chris Holton
Exciting experiences are a tricky thing to describe as everyone has such different opinions of what’s exciting. As a student currently finishing years twelve, as I get drawn deeper into the ever present study and school activities, I find I end up getting extremely excited about quite strange things and the people I try to share this excitement with don’t seem to understand at all.
In my classes I’m the strange kid that gets excited about creative writing challenges that our teacher will surprise us with or even the heady buzz of handing in a completed assignment. The rush, the thrill!
To print out what feels like a million pages of work that you have painstakingly numbered, labelled, and annotated and finally collect all into a clean, finished pile of paper, still warm from the belly of the printer. It has to be the most exciting thing in the world right? To dump the weight of all that work that has been weighing you down for weeks back onto your tormenter (or perhaps more politely your teacher) and float away.
It’s a feeling you can never possibly hope to match! Well.. That is until tomorrow when you get to repeat the entire process again for your next assignment.