Aleeta Carmody is studying a Bachelor of Human Resource Management majoring in Psychology at Deakin University. This semester she mentored two year 9 students at Sale College through the In2science eMentoring program. While in high school at Galen Catholic College in Wangaratta, Aleeta was a mentee in the same program. Here, Aleeta reflects on how valuable having a mentor was when she was in high school, and her motivations for joining the program as a current university student.
When I was in year 10 I was paired with my eMentor, Sara. I can’t exactly remember what she was studying but I believe she was doing a Masters thesis about blood. Talking to her, she had a clear passion about STEM and it was infectious. Despite this, she was honest about the difficulties of academia and getting research funding. It was really inspiring that she continued to do something she loved despite the obstacles and uncertainty. I wanted to find a pathway that gave me as much drive and fulfilment as she had. We spent many sessions discussing the different careers and pathways. We also discussed what I was doing in classes, science news, and general phenomena and theories. I really appreciated her commitment to providing me the mentorship I needed at the time.
I found the transition to university quite difficult. I think in many ways I was trying to put off moving to the next phase of my life; I finished my last shift at my gap year job on Friday, moved to Melbourne over the weekend, then started my first classes on Monday. Logistically I could have moved earlier but I was really comfortable in my life and enjoyed my job. I ended up moving back home quite quickly because I found all the change to be too much. Being able to work and be surrounded by community is more important to me than I realised prior to starting uni. I also struggled with having a full course load. In high school, I was taking a full load just fine but a key difference with studying uni online is that technically you can do things anytime. There are often classes you can attend live but if you miss them you can always just watch a lecture. Skipping classes live is an easy trap to fall into and not properly engage. Eventually I found a good balance. For me this means working part time, studying part time, and participating in my local community theatre group.
When I saw the opportunity to become a mentor through the In2science program, I jumped at it. I really wanted the opportunity to share my love of STEM with others and give back to a program that I really enjoyed being a part of. Despite my course being business-focused my major is psychology. I try to apply what I consider the key components of science to every aspects of my life: curiosity, the knowledge of those who came before you, and data collection/analysis. I genuinely believe we can all be scientists, not necessarily in the traditional way in a lab but in the sense that we can all use research, observations, and experiment with different variables to make things better. I do my best to share this perspective with my mentees while also focusing on giving them what they want to get out of the program. I’ve found it really rewarding to be a mentor and I look forward to catching up with my mentees each week.
