UWS students make their mark

Current UWS student, Kyle James, and UWS graduate, Rachel Farrelly, have recently been featured on the Make your Mark website (opens in a new window) and TVS documentary Indigenous Models of Achievement. The Make your Mark website is a handy resource designed to provide information about tertiary education for those who may never have thought that further study is an option. Indigenous Models of Achievement profiles the success and aspirations of students who are changing their lives through higher education.

Kyle is studying Physiotherapy part-time and is also working at the South Sydney Rabbitohs NRL club while working towards his career ambition of becoming a physiotherapist for a national sporting team. Talking about his involvement in the Models of Achievement filming, Kyle explains that the filming spanned places from his past and present. "We filmed on campus at Campbelltown, near where I live at Maroubra and even where I went to high school," says Kyle. "Some more filming was done with the University's Pathways to Dreaming program, which I have been part of while studying at UWS."

Kyle was a lead mentor in the Pathways to Dreaming program. "In this role, I went to local high schools in Sydney's south-west and gave students information about university," explains Kyle. "I spoke to the students about the struggles I found at university and how they were overcome and let them know that they can overcome them, too." Kyle has also taken part in the Heartbeat program, which allows Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander school children to learn about career paths and what they can do at university, and he has participated in the National Indigenous Tertiary Education Student Games.

Hear more about Kyle's journey in the video above.

Rachel Farrelly successfully completed her Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery, graduating in 2012, and has been working at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital for the past 18 months. Rachel aims to become the first Indigenous female orthopaedic surgeon in Australia. As part of the Indigenous Models of Australia program, Rachel returned to her hometown, Orange, to tell the story of her journey into medicine and how she became a doctor.

Rachel's road to study at UWS was a little different. She achieved a high grade in SAT (the American equivalent to the HSC) after being home-schooled. Starting university was a big step, moving away from the self-directed study she was so used to. Find out more in the video below.