Deakin University Community

Shortly after starting my Bachelor of Biomedical Science undergraduate studies at Deakin University in 2024, I joined clubs that aligned with my interests that allowed me to network with like-minded students. This included the Deakin University Biomedical Society Geelong (DUBS Geelong) which I quickly grew to love. My passion for the club grew because it was organising events that helped students better understand their career pathways, showing ways of preparing for entering the workforce, and helping students network with professionals. I wanted to be involved with the club’s organisation of these events. My enthusiasm for the club was demonstrated by actively participating in all of the club’s 2024 events. This active involvement was recognised by the 2024 President of DUBS Geelong, (Lacey Herbertson), to the extent that she encouraged me to apply for the position of 2025 President of DUBS Geelong. With this encouragement and the motivation, I took a chance at applying and was successfully voted into the position.

 

Since earning the position, I have had the great opportunity of working alongside my executive members, DUSA, and guest speakers throughout the year as we organised events for students. At first, I felt lost due to the significant number of presidential responsibilities, processes required to run events, and at times feeling out of touch with what students wanted and needed. However, I am glad that I worked through this struggle because it forced me to learn not to rush into a new role. Instead, I should appreciate the learning journey of comprehending the work and tasks at hand and figuring out how to complete them to a high standard. For example, Instagram and Facebook were used to promote club events. However, the conversion rate between online likes and event attendees was low. I made it a goal to change this. I did this by creating the club’s first LinkedIn page and connected students to it who were interested in science, so they were informed about upcoming events and available opportunities that were relevant to them. I developed this further by actively promoting the platform in lectures, seminars, workshops, and in everyday conversations with my peers by talking about the benefits of LinkedIn that allowed them to connect with industry experts. Ever since the LinkedIn account’s creation the club has seen a high conversion rate between connections and attendees at our events. This is further supported by the club's presence across all Deakin University campuses as more students from the Burwood campus have been attending our Geelong events despite the significant distance between the campuses.

 

Speaking of Burwood, another goal I made was to have a collaboration event between DUBS Geelong and DUBS Burwood. At first this goal seemed non-achievable because both clubs’ schedules did not align.

 

However during our planning for a separate event, a successful collaboration with the Medical Research Student Association (MRSA), we proved a joint event was possible between two campuses for the very first time. To our luck it was discussed, agreed on, planned, organised, and executed! I acted as the primary representative for this three-way collaboration for the DUBS Medical Research Night Event by regularly communicating about the progress towards completing the paperwork required, delegating tasks across the three clubs, adapting to changes which best suited everyone’s availability and needs, testing technical equipment used to execute the hybrid event, and creating a detailed run sheet to ensure the event stayed on track. The organisation of the event also involved me personally contacting a range of speakers relevant to the event and who would resonate with our students. Despite having a speaker pull out at the last minute on the day of the event, I immediately communicated this with the teams involved while proposing a solution that allowed us to move forward with the event. Thankfully, a replacement speaker was organised whose experience and insights were relevant to the attendees keen to pursue medical research.

 

Throughout 2024 I have hosted the Meet The Team Social Event, the Careers Night Event, the Medical Research Night Event, and the Placement Night Event, all for which I have received overwhelming positive feedback from our attendees. Multiple students have spoken to me expressing their gratitude to my team and I for organising events which help them feel less stressed and more confident about entering the workforce. Significantly, a range of students have shown their appreciation to me for addressing their queries, sharing my insights from multiple leadership roles, and for demonstrating my support to them as they take on new opportunities and their own leadership positions.