Passion for the environment led to retraining for a new career

Meg Shooter is moving on from acting and teaching to a career in environmental sustainability.

Meg Shooter has completed an undergraduate certificate in environmental sustainability at Western Sydney University and is now studying for a science degree. Picture: Sally Tsoutas/WSU

Performing artists were among the hardest hit during the Covid-19 crisis last year and so were English language colleges. Meg Shooter, an actor who was also working in such a college in Sydney, knew the time had come for a change.

“It was very apparent that the industry wasn’t going to bounce back overnight or any time soon,” Ms Shooter says. “And I had been thinking about, the fact that I had to retrain, for a long time.”

However, she did not want to jump feet-first into intensive retraining while working. “I’d been out of formal education for quite a while, and while you always like to think that you can do things, I wasn’t sure.”

So when the federal government announced its heavily subsidised short courses initiative mid-year she headed for its Course Seeker website and shopped around for an offering that seemed like a good fit. Western Sydney University’s six-month online undergraduate certificate in environmental sustainability fitted the bill.

She gained a Commonwealth-supported place and incurred a HECS debt of $3975.

“I’ve always been really passionate about the environment, about doing the right thing, about making sure that the world is safe and beautiful for the future,” Ms Shooter says.

“And [the course] just seemed like a really great choice because of the content, but also because I didn’t need any kind of prerequisite qualifications.”

It also came with a pathway to more study. Ms Shooter’s undergraduate certificate subjects counted towards the diploma of science she is now undertaking at WSU, and once that is complete, entry into the degree in environmental sustainability.

Each of the subjects – biodiversity, management of aquatic environments, water quality, assessment and management, and environmental issues and solutions – were taught in succession, also known as “block” mode.

Now that she has completed a semester in which she was studying two subjects at once, she sees the advantage of the block method. “I’m really glad that I only had one subject at the time while I was still working full-time,” she says.

She is working part-time, but her job at the college will finish in August and the future is uncertain. “I don’t know if it’s going to be another job for me,” she says. “I want to put all of my focus into my studies because I’m not getting any younger and I want to get it done. But at the same time, the Austudy money from the government is not a great amount.”

However she manages the years of her degree, she is firmly fixed on a new career is an area she loves. “I think this is an industry where jobs are being created every day and that’s probably going to be jobs in three years,” she says.

“I would really like to work even before then, just educating people in how to recycle and compost and do things properly, but also making it easy for them. Not having to go out of their way to take things to recycling or to their local community garden to compost, but make council initiatives so that it’s easy, it’s at their door.

“I‘m not going into politics, but I’d like to work on some kind of push for the government to bring in new legislation to just stop using plastic, but again make living sustainably easier for people. People don’t want to just change their habits and that’s fair enough.”