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Graduating with my first degree at 38

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I nev­er went to uni­ver­si­ty after high school, elect­ing to instead enlist in the Roy­al Aus­tralian Navy. So in 2016, after a few dif­fer­ent career paths, I decid­ed to under­take study at Fed­er­a­tion Uni­ver­si­ty in Bal­larat as a mature-aged stu­dent. I had no idea how much this new jour­ney would chal­lenge me, and how much I would gain from it. It tru­ly changed my life.

I hurt my back and strug­gled to sit dur­ing lec­tures, hav­ing to hold off on study mid­way through 2018 to have surgery. In this time my son left the fam­i­ly at 13 to move across to WA with his moth­er, only to return this year in the mid­dle of the first Vic­to­ri­an COVID-19 lock­down in May. I’ve had plen­ty of per­son­al chal­lenges along the way, which I can’t even begin to describe. But at the same time, I took on the chal­lenge of rid­ing my bicy­cle from Mel­bourne to Ade­laide for a char­i­ty, changed my lifestyle and diet and out­look, shift­ed pri­or­i­ties and sup­port­ed my part­ner and daugh­ter through their own lives. I got more involved in the com­mu­ni­ty. I took more time to do things slowly.

Look­ing back on the past five years, and the hur­dles that life has thrown up along the way, I am incred­i­bly proud to have just been award­ed the Bach­e­lor of Busi­ness in Mar­ket­ing and Human Resource Man­age­ment on 7 Decem­ber. What’s more, hav­ing my chil­dren see me doing this, at 38, is just the icing on the cake!

If you’re over 30 and think­ing of under­tak­ing fur­ther study, whether for the first time or return­ing to it, I say to you: just do it. 100%. You can’t go wrong with more knowl­edge, more learning.

Espe­cial­ly the things you learn about yourself.

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