Jess:
My name is Jess and my uni is USQ.

To be honest, I actually didn’t really believe in university - I just wanted to sort of get out there and start earning money, but, now that I’ve started it, I love it.

So yeah, I’ve just started my Bachelor of Nursing, so far it’s been pretty cruisie I haven’t really had anything major yet. I chose nursing because I enjoy helping people out, you know, I like seeing that I’ve made a difference to someone’s life and, although it’s not going to be good all the time, you know, when I do do something good, it’s actually going to be worth it. And I would rather do that than be in a lab researching something and not actually getting to see the effects.

I thought it would be more formal than school if anything, but it’s really not, like the lecturers are normal people as well, they’re not scary and mean – it’s like a family really, like it’s a small campus compared to the big ones, but it’s good that way. You know, I get to talk to the lecturers more and they are actually there to support me – I’m not just one of a number. You know, I’m just completely comfortable just going and seeing my lecturers and if I have any questions, they’re happy to help me out and I really love that. It’s actually easier than being at school for me.

I got to meet one of my lecturers through the Head Start program – last year, the start of last year. And I’ve sort of kept in contact with her and I’ve gone to her about any queries that I had about university, especially actually starting like as a full time student. And, one of the first things I did in O Week was to go see her and see how she is, and yeah, she was just as excited to see me actually back as a full time student.
Because I did the Head Start program, I had, sort of, a heads up on how uni life would be so it wasn’t such a big transition from school to uni. It happened in Year 10, the guidance counsellor came around and gave us the option of the Head Start program, told us about it and what not, and, so yeah, I took the flyers home and had a bit of a look – and at the time, I didn’t what I was going to do and we had to choose subjects for senior and I knew I had to choose subject that were relevant to what I wanted to do. I sort of decided it was either nursing or counselling and the Head Start program offered nursing, so I gave it a shot and, yeah, really enjoyed it.

I was looking online at all the sorts of scholarships that I could get and I saw all about this one, and I applied – and yeah, I ended up getting it. It should pay for all of my uni and hopefully even textbooks.

My family is really supportive, umm, my mum especially – like this is sort of a first experience for her as well, so she’s with me all the way and she tries theses cute little relaxation exercises and what not, it just, yeah just the fact that she’s trying so hard is, you know, what makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

It’s not as hard as people think it is. Uni, I’m only there a couple of days a week, and study, I do that mostly of a night time anyway, you know, winding down before bed – nothing like getting the brain working.

Yeah, being at uni’s umm, well I can’t say that it’s that I always dreamed of but it’s definitely something that, as a kid, I was like ‘oh, you know only like the smart really important good people grow up and go to uni and, you know, get a good job and all of that sort of stuff’ – that was always the dream I guess. During the start of High School, I never saw that that was something I wanted to do – just for the sake that I was over studying already, but, yeah, now that I’m in uni, I love it, it’s so different to school and it’s more enjoyable – it’s focused on what I want to learn. It means so much to actually be going to university and I feel important.