In this series Lizzie Jack connects with UOW Alumni as they share their stories about the lifelong connections they made at University.
Lizzie meets with a range of alumni from friends, business partners and families as we find out where they are now and how choosing to study at UOW changed their lives.
Pauline, Melissa and Maddie Lysaght share their connection to each other and the University of Wollongong, with personal experiences that span almost fifty years from UOW's inception, to starting uni during a pandemic.
Nik Preiner and Nathan Hancock grew up in Canberra, but didn't meet until they moved to Wollongong and into the same student accommodation. Now they run a successful financial business, and have been side-by-side since meeting at O-Week fifteen years ago.
Jaymee and Mick have led very different career paths, but similar circumstances led them to enrolling at the University of Wollongong to change their own narrative.
Barron Hanson and Michael 'Apples' Appleford met as teenagers playing in the same AFL team, but lost touch as they grew up. A chance encounter at the University of Wollongong shaped these childhood acquaintances into best mates who've been by each other's side from New Zealand to New York.
If Emily and Clayton McDowell's lives were a movie, UOW Innovation Campus would be the set. They both had their own milestones based around the campus, from moving out of home, doing PhD's, meeting each other, to their eventual wedding day.
Ash and Grant met as teenagers working casually at Jamberoo Action Park on the south coast. When Grant saw how much fun his mates were having studying PE at UOW, he decided to enrol, and convinced Ash to come study teaching. After 17 years together, the pair share a fun-loving marriage, two kids and a successful childcare business.
Jennifer Macey is an award-winning journalist and podcast producer, but maybe her most nerve wracking gig was standing in front of a lecture to teach. In her first class teaching, she met Lizzie Jack. Over four years, the pair have gone from teacher-and-student, to boss-and-employee, to actual friends.
In 1977, Patricia Davidson had left ANU in her hometown of Canberra to pursue nursing at Wollongong Hospital. On her first day in training, she met Irish ex-pat John Daly, one of only two men in the class. Over forty years of friendship, they've championed each other through nursing, studying, and revolutionising nursing in universities.
A podcast by the University of Wollongong.