John Wells

Interim Deputy Vice Chancellor, Pro Chancellor Gillian Shadwick, Professor Lynette Sheridan Burns, All Academic staff, Graduands and your families and friends. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

There are many historic events on this day in the years gone by…. 

• In 46 BC Julius Caesar dedicated a temple to his mythical ancestor Venus Genetrix in accordance with a vow he made at the battle of Pharsalus.
• In 1901 - Great Britain annexed Gold Coast….no not our gold coast but in (Ghana).
• And more recently in 2012 - Greek trade unions called a general strike to protest austerity measures.

No less significant than those events is your graduation ceremony today at the University of Western Sydney.

Today is a day for you all to reflect on what you have achieved and to feel proud that you mastered your various courses and have succeeded… to a greater or lesser extent.

On a day like today, it is important to reflect on the fact that the University of Western Sydney has given you and many other families like yours the first real opportunity to attend a university.

You may not know it, but 80% of people who attend the University of Western Sydney are the first in their families to study at University.  

This is a marvellous outcome for you and for Western Sydney more generally.  This is the people’s university.

Whether you have studied and passed your exams in journalism, public relations, digital media, or in languages, philosophy or history, you should feel very proud of your achievements.

More importantly, you should feel excited about the prospects of making a career for yourself in your chosen field.

This is what all the hard slog has been about.

The late nights, tearing your hair out over all the study and the exams.

It seems somewhat incongruous for me to be here today to speak with you about what it’s like to succeed at University…unfortunately didn’t go to university.

I grew up in Western NSW and couldn’t really afford to come to Sydney to attend University. Mind you, I’m not sure I got the right score to get in any way.

I was too interested in playing football, chasing girls and not studying.

And there was no journalism course in those days anyway. And in the early 1970s that’s all I wanted to do… become a journalist.

So I stopped chasing the girls and started chasing the news and the truth.

I managed to persuade the editor of a local newspaper in the small country town of Narrandera in south western NSW, to hire me as a cadet.

Not long after that he fired me because I managed to have a trial I was covering aborted because of misreporting.

I wrote about evidence that was given in the trial while the jury was not present in the court room…. That is a serious no no.

The trial was duly aborted and I was fired. The judge must have had some sympathy for me and offered me a scotch in his Chambers at 10 am.

If I can use my own experience as an example of what might interest many of you … it is to chase your dreams, because that’s what I did and I can tell you …it works.

If you want to be a journalist, be one; if you want to be a public relations practitioner then be one; if you want to be deeply immersed in literature or languages, then do it.

You can do it if you want to.  If someone says there are no jobs in journalism for graduates… then that’s wrong.  

There are jobs of every description out there.  It’s up to you to find it, and if you cannot find it then go and create it.

I did, and I loved it.

I became a cadet journalist. I worked in newspapers for years.

I wanted to travel and be a foreign correspondent, so I packed my bags and off I went… I did it.  

I wanted to work in television, so I set about getting a job in television..(having a face made for radio I wasn’t in front of the camera of course).

Then I wanted to do radio journalism…. so I did that too.

After that I wanted to work in politics, so I did it.

I did these things because I could. And so can you.

That might sound a bit daunting, but if you don’t aim high, you won’t achieve greatness, and you’ll forever regret it.

And, while you may have heard all this before, there are no truer words:

If you love what you do, then you’ll never work a day in your life… and be sure to have some fun while you’re there.

Working is not just a job, it’s about enjoying yourself and having some fun and doing good work.

It’s about putting skills you’ve learned here into practise.

It’s about experimenting and working things out. It’s rewarding and exciting.

Don’t chase a career because there might be money in it.  Chase a career because you want it.  

If you are any good, the money will follow and so will the enjoyment.

Rupert Murdoch went into the media, firstly into newspapers because he loved it... not because he wanted to make a lot of money. He started with a little money and then borrowed a lot more.  He took a risk. A very big risk and it paid off. He could have invested all the money he’s made over the years in something far more productive and valuable than media… but he didn’t because at heart he loved the media. Kerry Packer was the same. He took his father’s business and trebled it because he loved the media, not because he made a lot of money.

The fact is that you have as many, if not more opportunities today than they did. You can get into all sorts of communications roles. 40 years ago there was no digital media, there was no internet, there were no mobile phones. People who studied arts and literature were often teachers and academics. There are fabulous opportunities all around the world in these careers paths.

You just have to want something badly enough and you’ll find a way to achieve it.

If I could pick one small anecdote from my years in the media and consulting… it was years ago when the great boxer, Mohummad Ali came to Sydney for an exhibition boxing match.

I was a working journalist so I decided to track him down and interview him.

His trip was a private one and no interviews were granted... except mine... Because I chased him… like a dog with a bone ..and asked him if I could talk to him.

My photographer at the time and I spent a whole day with him.

It is something that has stuck in my mind for my whole working life… it was fantastic fun. That’s just a small example of the kind of thing you could aspire to.

Then, many years later, I found myself at a very different end of the media spectrum…working with Vice Chancellor Professor Reid and Deputy Vice Chancellor Rhonda Hawkins here at UWS. They have been marvellous people to work with. All these media and consulting roles I’ve had over my many, many years are different yet related. They have been challenging, interesting, demanding but best of all they've been FUN.

This diversity, encounters, trials and successes have made my career a terrific one, and I hope you aspire to something similar and succeed. And if there is just one very special piece of advice I can leave you with whatever career path you take… it is this…make sure you build a network of business contacts and friends who, over your working life, will help you and give you guidance and support.

And who knows, they might even pay you a lot of money for your advice and help. If I had my time over again I’d only change one thing…. I’d go to university. I think I could have been a much better person and much better at what I have done over the years, had I studied at the level you’ve just completed. You and your families should all be proud and thankful that you’ve  had the opportunity to study at university… particularly this university. The people’s university. It is a marvellous place with fantastic leaders.