Student Stories: Jack Hornbuckle | CUC Western Riverina

When Jack finished his HSC, a mechatronics degree looked like it would mean packing up and heading to Melbourne. Instead, he found a way to study a hands-on discipline online through Deakin University while staying in the community he grew up in. Backed by a cadetship with local engineering firm I2R – who support his tuition, give him paid study time, and employ him alongside his degree – Jack now works 38 hours a week and uses eight of those to study, whether from home or at the Country University Centre in Griffith.

It’s a path that lets him build real workplace experience and a qualification at the same time, without leaving the place and the people he knows best.

Transcript

00:00

So, the degree I’m currently doing is mechatronics. So, I initially thought you would have to move away. I mean, it’s is a very hands-on sort of subject, you know, as it turns out. No, you don’t. Deakin um does a pretty good online experience for students even with

00:15

something as hands-on as mechatronics. We started talking to Jack last year when he was doing his HSC. He expressed an interest in doing a mechatronics degree. He was actually going to go off to Melbourne and do that full-time. And we put to him that uh we would actually

00:30

support him in terms of tuition, paying his tuition, giving him some time off and then employing him and paying him as well to work with us. I basically work 38 hours a week for I2R. So pretty standard sort of contract for someone of my age doing an apprenticeship or a cadetship

00:47

And then eight of those hours I can use on studying. So whether that be here at the Country University Centre or at home and that’s how my cadetship works and then hopefully I just move up through ranks and become of more and more value to them and then by the time

01:03

I finish my degree I’m more useful to them than say coming straight out of uni with no experience in the workplace. Country Universities in Griffith is really important. Gives Jack a a place to come and study and be supported by peers and be around his peers. So we

01:18

think that’s really important. It’s great for the great for the town, great for the area. >> I have, you know, a former residence here already with my parents. So, being able to work somewhere using my degree in a place I’m familiar with and I’ve grown up in, that’s really good for me.

01:34

So, really, really happy about that.

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