Year 12 students Lucy Bolton, Ammar Syed, Archie Showers and Sam Magurie were just four of the nearly 200 students who took part in the HSC Chemistry Day at Charles Sturt University. Photo: Jarryd Rowley.
Riverina high school students travelled to Charles Sturt University this week to take part in workshops demonstrating what chemistry-based classes look like at university.
The program, HSC Chemistry Days, is focused on enticing HSC students to pursue university courses that contain chemistry units, including medicine, nursing and research-based degrees.
Students conducted experiments under the supervision of university professors while using equipment that regional schools would not normally be equipped with.
Scots School Albury Year 12 students Ammar Syed and Lucy Bolton said the program gave them a better understanding of what studying chemistry at university would look like, and a better gauge of what they’d choose to pursue after finishing high school.
“Today was all about getting some practical experience compared to the theory that we’ve been learning at school,” Ammar said.
“At school, we don’t normally have access to the technology that they do here at Charles Sturt University.
“It’s been an amazing opportunity to get to properly trial all the equipment and learn from people who will most likely be teaching some of us in the next few years.”
Lucy said she would likely apply to study medicine at CSU and that events such as the HSC Chemistry Days had been influential in her decision-making.
“The professor was talking about some of the access and equipment they have here that the first years do get to use, because it is a small regional campus compared to the metropolitan areas that normally wouldn’t,” she said.
“I think studying in a regional area will have a lot more hands-on experience as well.
“It’s been really exciting and left me looking forward to potentially doing this in the future.”
Course director of the Bachelor of Science with Charles Sturt’s School of Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences Dr Celia Barril said CSU had been running the HSC Chemistry Days since 1999 and had had more than 5000 high school students take part.
“As well as meeting a need for our community, our goal is to inspire the next generation,” Dr Barril said.
“Students get to complete some of their HSC chemistry studies using high-end equipment in our state-of-the-art laboratories. Students also get to experience our Wagga Wagga campus and talk about careers and study paths.
“We’ve opened students’ minds to chemistry’s relevance and how exciting it actually is.”
