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

I finished Year 12 in 2007, was accepted into a Brisbane university, didn’t really feel ready to study – I want to earn a little bit more money and have a lifestyle before I came to uni, so I just never turned up and instead I started looking for work. I found a job as a timber detailer.
I think a few site visits definitely help, seeing what you put on a computer in real life – you can sort of imagine doing something on a bit bigger scale and wondering how it will feel walking on site going ‘that’s a bridge or that’s a set of buildings and stuff like that’. That really started to bring to the foreground that, you know, there is a whole another world to engineering and I think just having that small taste of what there is to offer got me excited about studying and going back to uni. I’m looking forward to learning to, you know, learning in my workplace as well as learning at uni.

Unlike when I was in Year 12, I actually looked around at a few different unis. USQ offered both external study and on-campus study which was really a bonus ‘cause I felt I wanted to keep working through my studies – some subjects I feel I don’t need to be here to learn. And I’ve had the opportunity to use those lecture and tutorial hours to go back to work and earn some more money and subjects I feel a little bit harder or might need some more attention, I’ve picked as on-campus. It’s always important to make sure the uni fits the person rather than the other way around.

They know that you’re whole world doesn’t resolve around uni and if something comes up it might be more important than getting your assignment in on time, you go talk to someone and say ‘hey look, it’s not really possible, can I have a little bit extra time?’ and they really help you out and they understand what you are going through.

Karl’s girlfriend:
He’s doing so well with his studies, I’m very proud of him and so is his family and all of our friends.

Karl:
The StudyDesk is an online tool available to on-campus and external students. Lecturers host information online as well as students go in there and log in there and they can access any information that has been put up as well as there are quite a few forums. You can talk to other students and also the lecturers are directly contactable through that StudyDesk, so I mean it’s a really great tool to sort of spread information. And I wouldn’t have any hesitation of staying with USQ even if I moved away, I think the external – the contact you get as an external student is good enough that if you moved away I wouldn’t really think of changing university at all anyway – it would just be a case of getting my textbooks sent in the mail rather than coming and picking them up.

If you are on-campus you have the option of talking to them directly after any class, but also there is an email contact that I found through all my courses that they’ve been very accessible – definitely appreciate it as a student when you are stuck on something and you need a bit of help.

And the Uni offer the res-schools which are fantastic. You get to do the testing, you get to see how the actual engineering side works – you can’t teach that stuff out of a text book, you need to get your hands dirty as it were. They are just another too the uni can use to sort of enhance who you are as a graduate.

Yeah, I would probably be one of the odd few at the uni because I’m still quite young but I have experienced the world outside uni, so I can relate to the guys that have come straight out of school, and I also relate to the people here who are working. Quite often the people that work or are in the industry and coming back to do their degree, they often have very strong opinions and they have certain traits they bring from that, where as sometimes you find the guys that are just fresh out of school they thing about things a different way so in that regard having two types of people around is really, really good.

You all sort of have a common goal of getting in there and getting the subject done, so you’re spending a lot of time together – you’re usually spending time outside of dedicated uni time. You really get to know each other. You find out everyone’s stories and you make a lot of good friends along the way.