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Weaving my own way


In my first weeks of University life, I unzipped a heavy blue bag and found myself bent over a skinny cadaver with a scalpel in my hand. Smelling the formaldehyde. Over the course of the next year, we carved flesh from his buttocks, separated muscle from cartilage, and pulled and probed his ligaments. Lab sessions with the stiffs were fascinating, but I didn’t really want to be doing Medicine. I had never liked biology and was not at all interested in seeing patients with medical needs. So how did I get to be there?


Surgery days, pic Anna Sublet
It was always expected in our family that we would attend University, preferably to do medicine or law. Coming from a family of parents and grandparents who valued tertiary education, who had been lawyers, doctors, engineers and inventors, this was an unquestioned path. Of course, at the Catholic school, there was also the option of becoming a wife and mother, something seemingly so appalling to me that I rejected such a notion for decades.

Career advice at my private schools was limited to four ‘real’ options: medicine, law, science, arts...or ‘basket weaving at Rusden.’ Clearly that fifth option was an absurd joke, to highlight just how nonsensical it would be to consider anything outside the norm. ‘Basket weaving’ at a smaller university was meant to encapsulate all those pointless, dreamy notions of creativity which were so obviously to be discarded, like a ratty handmade basket. What this meant, in retrospect, was that I didn’t really look beyond the obvious. There was a script to follow, and it ended with either a stethoscope or a horsehair wig, if you happened to do well enough.

I had been a ‘good student’ right throughout most of my school life. It must have horrified my parents when I nearly failed every subject in Year 11, except for English in which I scored an A+. They hadn’t sent me to private schools to be a non-achiever, they told me.

So, I changed school in my final year, and managed to get the marks for Medicine. I remember going to the pub the night of results. ‘What marks did you get? What course will you do?’ I feel as if I shrugged. ‘Medicine, I guess.’

Having University as an expected path is a marvellous thing, but perhaps I could have woven a different tale, carved out a different track, if the options had not been quite so narrowly focussed. As it turned out, I failed medicine and left after one year to pursue studies in the arts. Gaining an Arts degree in the 80s was not exactly a clear ticket to a career. The recession had hit, and the skills I gained were rather non-specific, so my professional path since has been a meandering one.

I have been employed in marketing, as an academic researcher, and even as a careers and employment advisor. After a period out of the workforce while having children, I briefly returned to post-graduate study, honing skills in writing and communications. My current employment is casual, and my paid writing pieces sporadic. On reflection, I wonder how it would have been if I’d thought more about weaving my own way, at the time when the world of tertiary education was first open to me. Though I remain forever grateful for the chance to study philosophy, politics, english and international relations, it seems my ‘professional life’ does look somewhat like a ratty basket, poorly constructed and at times unravelling. For that, I can only answer to myself.

First published in The Age, Education Age, 15th May 2016
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  1. Carolyn22 May 2016 at 21:18

    Well, we've already had a bit of a discussion on this. For me it was arts/law, not medicine. The reasons were various. My parents had not been tertiary educated so were anxious for me to be so since I had always been a high achieving student. There was part of me that wanted to do a course with status to reflect my academic abilities. Deep down, I think I knew law probably wasn't really for me, but I allowed myself to be swept up by the expectations of others and their hopes for me rather than thinking about what really interested me and suited my personality. But then, it's hard to know who you really are, and admit to it, when you're only 17 or 18.

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    1. Anna Sublet 23 May 2016 at 13:18

      Thanks for commenting, Carolyn. That side of the story, where parents had NOT had the chance at education, is a really interesting angle, probably even more so than the middle-class perspective. And yes, most kids have limited idea of goals at 17 or 18! If we funded our schools equitably, I'd expect there would be less need for pressure to achieve 'high marks' (less need to marketing/competition between schools) and possibly a greater emphasis on working to strengths, with support of great teachers and facilities. But, not so in Australia. The story continues...

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