The class of 2023 is about to take the step between high school and university, and many would have felt the significant amount of pressure that comes with making an important decision about their future career path.
While some strike gold and make the right decision straight off the bat, other students take a little longer to find their calling.
Ned Caporn-Bennett first studied engineering at UWA, before realising fashion at TAFE was more his style.Credit: Holly Thompson
Ned Caporn-Bennett felt the pressure to choose what had been described to him as a viable career as an engineer.
But after starting his degree at the University of Western Australia, he realised he was on the wrong path.
“I had studied a lot of maths and science during ATAR, my high school did not really have a focus on anything arts-based or on TAFE pathways, the only thing it seemed like you could do outside of university was become a tradie or do nursing,” he said.
“It was never presented to me that I could do something creative. School definitely focused more on what they deemed as success, rather than something that I’d actually genuinely enjoy and find contentment with.”
Caporn-Bennett stuck out his first year at university, but realised he did not want to go back.
“I decided to change course, but I wasn’t really convinced about that choice at the start,” he said.
“Throughout the year at uni I was making clothes for fun, and I did a fine art elective which I really enjoyed.
“That definitely was a large part of me wanting to change. I realised that of all my classes that was by far my favourite one.”
Now in his third and final year of an advanced diploma of fashion at TAFE, Caporn-Bennett said it had been the right choice to change.
Rebecca Bennett and Georgia Seymour.Credit: Murdoch University
“Don’t do what everyone else is telling you to do, and it doesn’t really matter what you do in that first year. If you do make a mistake and do the wrong course, it’s fine to change,” he said.
When Georgia Seymour graduated from high school, she stepped straight into a bridging course at Curtin University, before also beginning an engineering degree.
But her start at university was not what she thought it would be, and after just one semester she realised the degree she had chosen was not for her.
She struggled to find common interests with her peers, or to be motivated to attend classes.
Georgia Seymour realised she wanted to work with animals after growing up on a hobby farm in Dongara.
“I did not want to waste any more time pursuing something that I didn’t like. It was a quick decision to leave engineering between semesters, but I didn’t have a back-up plan in place,” she said.
“I decided on trying my luck at being a veterinarian due to my lifelong love for all animals. After a bit of research, I discovered that I would need to start a bachelor of agricultural science to be able to transfer.
“I decided to bite the bullet and give it a go. I am so passionate about this degree due to spending my childhood growing up on a 75-acre hobby farm up north in a small coastal farming town called Dongara.
“It’s safe to say I’m hooked.”
Seymour advised struggling students to follow their hearts, and while there was pressure to choose degrees for job prospects and future wealth, “if it makes you miserable, stop”.
“I found myself questioning if I was on the right path, if I was at university because I wanted to be or because it was expected of me.”
Murdoch University Equity Diversity and Inclusion Pro Vice Chancellor Rebecca Bennett
Murdoch University equity diversity and inclusion pro vice chancellor Rebecca Bennett said she had been a high-achieving student at school, but had no clue what she wanted to study when she finished year 12.
She pushed back against the pressure to enrol in law at a Group of Eight university and took a break, working for a year and then backpacking for a year, before enrolling in a Bachelor of Arts at Murdoch.
But Bennett still struggled to find her place, initially enrolling in a theatre arts major, then switching to a communications and cultural studies degree.
“In the first two years of study I found myself constantly questioning if I was on the right path, and wondering if I was at university because I wanted to be there or because it was expected of me,” she said.
“I dropped out at the end of my second year. I did not return for three years.
“By the time I re-enrolled in my cultural studies degree ... I did not look back, finishing my Bachelors, Honours, and PhD without stopping.”
Bennett wanted current students to know there was no right way to do university.
“It is important to make university work for your specific needs, interests, and life circumstances. I encourage students to find their people and follow their passions, rather than thinking of uni as training for a job,” she said.
“Uni is an opportunity to figure out who you are, where you belong, and what you love, and don’t love, doing. Be open to change.
“I firmly believe that if students follow their interests and hearts, they will find a career they love and possibly, one that they did not know existed – or one that did not exist – when they started their journey.
“Just don’t give up.”
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