WAIT was the perfect tertiary institution for a mind like mine
Light Bulb Moments
All humans are amazing, each born with their own unique talents and an innate ability to dream and to aspire. After a recent trip back home to Perth, I was looking at some old school reports and the yellowing pages gave me a stark reminder that I was not the most academically gifted of students and that I had to really struggle to get the grades I needed to achieve my career goals. I did know that I could understand how machines worked and strangely calculus, possibly because the equations describe continuous change that I could imagine.
WAIT was the perfect tertiary institution for a mind like mine to study engineering as the course applied topics to practical problems without any diminution of the background science and mathematics. I came back to WAIT as a part-time student to undertake research in how blood flows in un-affected and diseased limbs as part of a post-graduate degree in physics. To discover that many of the laws and mathematics I had learned in engineering could be applied to describe, what on the surface appeared a totally un-related field, was hugely inspirational for me and with the guidance of my academic supervisors I was taught how to express and to write about my findings.
Like me who came before, I strongly believe that students educated at Curtin University continue to receive that valuable mix of a strong technical grounding in their chosen subjects combined with a clear and practical understanding of the demands and expectations they will face in their careers. This particular science geek would have been much poorer intellectually and professionally if the University had not given him the opportunity to study in such a nurturing environment.
Tom Shannon TD PhD