UOW
Southern Highlands

My name is Dakota. I'm currently undertaking a traineeship at UOW Southern Highlands. For the majority of my childhood, I did want to become a registered nurse. 

It's always been a dream of mine. I chose to undertake this traineeship because I wanted to further educate myself. I want to eventually do my RN, so this was a really good like opening pathway to that.

Having that extra bit of knowledge definitely helps. So my name is Zach Hollum. I'm the partnership manager at Hubberson. 

We really have a focus on educating people locally and employing people locally. The fee-free option just allows us and our staff the opportunity to get next level education, which always reflects well on our residents with our care. Some of my highlights of being a carer is helping residents with their day-to-day activities. 

It's quite rewarding. It's a good feeling going home knowing you've made someone's day better. Some of the residents participate in music, they participate in chess, and we also have an international cycling programme. 

It's a great initiative to make this fee-free. This gives people an opportunity to absolutely focus on their study, which they can bring to their job and not have any kind of financial worry. The fact that the traineeship was fee-free and it was local did make my decision for the traineeship 100 times easier. 

So the opportunity to have something right in our backyard where we have UOW Southern Highlands is just paramount. I enjoy going to campus. I go to the campus one day a week. 

It's quiet, it's peaceful. Yeah. So my favourite aspects of the traineeship would probably be all the practicals really. 

I like to be very hands-on, so it's amazing. Just watching the way that our trainees interact with our residents is a perfect combination of what can happen in a regional community.