Scholarships boost possibilities

Sophie Pitt

A proud Erub woman from the Torres Strait, and the first in her family to attend university, Sophie Pitt knows hard work and determination. She also knows that a bit of help from scholarships can provide a powerful boost to what’s possible.

When Sophie Pitt was growing up, she never dreamt she’d go to university, let alone receive a University Medal for her outstanding scholarly results.

“My mum is from Parkes and my dad is from Far North Queensland, but I grew up in Shellharbour. In my early thirties, I got a position as an Aboriginal mental health trainee and pursuing the Bachelor of Health Science (Mental Health) at Charles Sturt was part of the job. I didn’t finish high school, so study took some getting used to but because I enjoyed the content of the course so much, it made it a lot easier to keep up with everything.”

Sophie’s aptitude for study and drive to succeed were recognised when she received the Moya Crowe Memorial Scholarship in the second year of her studies and the Indymarra Prize in her third year. These funds allowed her to buy a new laptop and pay for a babysitter to look after her two children, which helped ease the pressures of studying and provided much-needed encouragement.

“Apart from the financial side of things, the scholarships really boosted my confidence. I tend to not have a lot of faith in my own abilities, so to know that someone thought I was doing well enough to fund my studies really helped to boost my confidence in continuing. I thank them for being my motivation to keep going. I pushed myself that bit more because I knew people had invested in me.”

Graduating in 2020 with distinction, Sophie said receiving the University Medal in recognition of her results was like a dream and she was shocked when she was notified she had won.

“I didn’t even know university medals were a thing! I was surprised and proud of myself, which doesn’t happen very often. My family were just as proud but less surprised. They saw how much uni took it out of me and they were proud that I was being acknowledged for my hard work.”

Since graduating, Sophie has been working as an Aboriginal mental health clinician and said that after the three years of working full-time and studying full-time, she needed a break – especially after the year that was 2020.

“For now, I’m concentrating on work and trying to get as much clinical experience as I can, but I am planning to do go back and do Honours and then a PhD, as I would like to get into policy development and research. And there are not really that many Indigenous PhD candidates. I want to add to that number.

“None of this was even on my radar back in high school. If 17-year-old Sophie could see me now!”