Hi I'm Ron I'm okay more coffee, hi I'm Ron
I'm a lecturer in environmental and marine science here at UQ
and I'm here with Laura who's a student in environmental science
and we are here together to answer some of your questions
looks like i have the first question so what is it about UQ's approach that
makes us the most employable graduates in the state?
I think I think in the center of it all it's the integration
it's the integration of the technical the academic knowledge
and all of that learning but it's integrated heavily with exposure to
industry with exposure to people who will
actually potentially employ you and so we have a number of courses for
example where you on the one hand do an internship
where you literally go and work in an office work in industry
with the people who will potentially be your future employer and so you really
learn the sort of on-the-job skills and at the
same time all of the technical academic work is
tailored to dovetail into that and so there is a
very strong effort to integrate those two if you like
sides of what you learn at UQ. What does a day in the life of an environmental
science student look like? A day in my life would probably start
with some lectures in the morning maybe based on biology usually and then we
have three hour practicals from there where
we look at plant biology or soil science and then some more integrated tutorials
in the afternoon and then some more lectures to top it off. What is
the most interesting thing you've learned that has not been part of your
coursework? The most interesting thing I would have
learned would be from one of the seminars I attended through UQ so we had
something that was talking about the underwater volcanism
and the processes around hydrothermal vents
so that was really interesting as well. Alright for you,
what opportunities do your students have to get hands-on experience in our
industry? There are a number of courses where
students are proactively exposed to industry and that
can be where they undertake a team effort to solve a real problem
for a real partner um a real client that might be a local
government agency or it might be a not-for-profit management or
environmental group but at the same time they then also have
the chance to participate in an internship where they're actually
placed in industry and they work at the tasks in the job
that they might aspire to do. What are some of the coolest jobs your former
students are doing? Well I have a number of students that
have gone off to do some really interesting things, so some of
them of course have gone off to work in consulting companies for local
government for state and federal government for example
one of the students is now working for the auditor generals
in Canberra at the same time some of the students have gone off there
was one that's gone off and worked for WWF,
there's another one who's gone off to work for the PEW Foundation which is an
international philanthropic foundation supporting
environmental issues, and then of course there was
another student that went off and is currently working for United Nations
environment program and so there's a whole range of opportunity out
there that students seem to be quite easily slotted into yeah it
sounds quite amazing. What are the most valuable skills you've
learned as part of your degree? Some of the most valuable skills I would
have learned would definitely be some of the hands-on practical
experience we get so I never expected the amount of field
work that we do get to do with UQ as well as the laboratory techniques
that we get to learn so it's really valuable the statistical
knowledge I now have as well as some of like the problem
solving that we've done in classes with that hands-on work. What
do you think employers in your industry are looking
for and how do you think UQ has equipped you with these skills? Some
of the most important skills I think employers would be looking for
is definitely work experience is one so we have different internship
opportunities through UQ as well as some work placements that we
can find in the programs and other things would definitely be the
communication skills that you get through group projects as well as
some of the solo work you can do with research as well
If you could give me one piece of advice that would set me apart as a job
candidate what would it be? I think it's to be open-minded
in your approach of course in any interview you have to be clear and you
have to be upfront with what you know and really
make obvious what your strengths are but in general terms i think you have to
be open-minded to solving problems in new and different ways it's about
being able to really take knowledge and the skills you have and being
innovative so that inherently means being
open-minded to a different way of doing business
What makes a good student and are they the same things that make a good job
candidate? I think they strongly overlap and I
think central to that I'd make a few comments, I think
one of the things you really need to make sure is that you are actively
engaging participate I mean UQ in particular
works hard to open the doors to make it easy to
make it possible to engage and so it's really about taking that
opportunity and engaging to make use of what's around you you'll
be learning in ways at university that you probably
have never undertaken in high school for example
and so it's about being open to that about being happy to adapt being happy
to take on new ideas new knowledge and then
to use your own strengths and your own insights to
test them play with them but be proactive
I mean really engage in the learning process
I mean clearly as you can hear nature is keen to participate in the interview as
well so environmental science is clearly a
very important thing. So it looks like I have the last
question, what have you learned about yourself since you began your studies at
UQ? When I started at UQ I never thought
that I would want to pursue postgraduate study
but now that I've been here and I'm going to be doing honours soon
I really think that having a PhD would be really useful or
getting to do something in the field of soil science or
plant research is really interesting to me also while being at UQ
I've learned a lot of different organizational skills from planning
what you're doing with your timetable to making sure you've got everything
prepared for your class as an assessment and i guess it's a resilient process
with all your assessment tasks okay thanks
you