The 2017 Galuwa cohort was a geographically diverse group with several firsts! Amongst the 22 participants were high school students from the Northern Territory, Queensland and Victoria.
Regional NSW was also well represented with participants travelling from Cootamundra, Bangalow, Dubbo, Narromine and Taree, as well as nearer to UTS from various Sydney suburbs.
The Galuwa Indigenous Access program at FEIT is an annual five day camp held in collaboration with UTS Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning to give students in years 10 -12 real insight into the university experience.
Students attending the FEIT camp also get an understanding of
- career opportunities in the engineering and IT industries
- practical information about pathways, scholarships and opportunities in these industries
- the state-of-the-art teaching and learning facilities at UTS
- contemporary public projects conducted by key industry partners such as Transgrid and Lend Lease
From the application process it is clear that while some students already have a strong sense of the areas they want to study, others are still “figuring it out!” For all of them, the Galuwa experience is a great introduction to the courses and facilities for teaching and learning at UTS, and to living in Sydney.
Once arrived and introduced to each other, a welcome dinner at the National Centre for Indigenous Excellence (NCIE) was followed by a firepit/storytelling session to get to know each other better.
The next days were full on, with a combination of interactive workshops and site visits to organisations including the ABC, Westpac’s premises at Barangaroo and presentations abut UTS units and services which can make the transition to uni life easier.
“The workshops were great, they really help understand how important teamwork is,” said Ryan (15) from Tweed Heads who is particularly interested in biomedical sciences.
The biggest highlight?
An unscientific verbal survey suggests it was the visit to the NorthConnex underground motorway project1 Students were given an an insider’s look at the Southern Interchange at the corner of Pennant Hills Road and the Hills M2 Motorway, and met with several young engineers working on the project who told them about their studies and careers. They were very impressed with the sheer scale of this project, which has a daily workforce of up to 2000, offering many career and learning opportunities essential for developing the next generation of tunnellers, engineers and project managers.
Other favourites were ‘robots’, ‘robot workshops’, ‘anything to do with robots’ with one major vote for the evening spent ten pin bowling.
The Galuwa experience creates a cameraderie amongst the students, who, as well as some structured social activities had free time to hang out and get to know each other. They do intend to keep in touch as they face key decisions for their immediate and long term futures.
“I will definitely stay in touch with the others, it’s great to have our own support network,” said Griffin (16),from Taree.
For him, and others such as Ben (16) from Cootamundra and Moeshe (17) from Kyogle, university study inevitably means a move far from home; some think this will be daunting and others ‘can’t wait!’ for it.
So along with course and subject information, students also heard about UTS accommodation options, and the variety of clubs and societies that operate on campus.
“It was good to hear about the different societies”, said Harry (16) from south-west Sydney. “It gives more of a sense of what you can do here and how you can learn new skills in different ways and meet new people.”