Jackie:

I am Jackie Horsey and I am a USQ student.

My father’s a concreter so growing up we were always helping him out and even through school holidays we’d go out and pretend to be concreters, so I’ve always had an interest.

I finished high school and went straight in to the workforce as a trainee drafter. I had been drafting for about 5 years and I sort of felt that I had gone as much as I could go. Myself and my partner moved back to Brisbane in May and I guess that when I decided I’d had enough of drafting; so the next step was to go into engineering; so that’s were I went!

Studying externally form USQ is really convenient for me, it’s very flexible.

I can study at work; I can work when I want I can study when I want. I can go to work, and not have to worry about going to uni.

With working in a mechanical engineering office, it works out really well with what I’m studying; all the engineers here are very helpful. If I’m ever having a problem with uni they’re happy to talk me through it and with work as well, they’re really good mentors.

Alright, so this is Peter, he is one of the engineers here. On a day to day basis I will ask Peter many stupid questions. I work 5 days a week, 5 hours a day.

Peter:

We get to see her everyday she feels apart of the team, it just feels like she’s lucky to be here.

Jackie:

USQ is well set up for external study. There are forums and chats online, and the books are well set out. They give you a week to week timeline of where you should be at; if you’re having issues you can always talk to the lecturers.

There are tutorials online, there are resources online, and you carry on a relationship that enough though we may have very different lives we have the same aim, and its nice to know that there’s other people out there who understand what you’re going through- it is very much a good feeling. I didn’t know what to expect really like, what have I gotten myself into, is this the right thing? But, because there is so much support in USQ, it is so easy to do. Knowing how busy my life is, its nice knowing that there is that flexibility. It’s, um, it’s fulfilling!