Champing at the bit: Alex Smith (far right) with younger brother Hamish, mum Carolyn and dad Charles. Alex will study dentistry at La Trobe University in Bendigo.
Photo by
Daneka Hill
Nearly every dairy farm kid heading off to university has taken a crack at the Gardiner Foundation’s prestigious $30,000 scholarship.
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With only seven scholarships up for grabs in each annual round, the competition can be intense.
This year, a dentistry student from St Germains and an agricultural science student from Muckatah have come out successful.
Alex Smith is heading straight into a Bachelor of Dental Science after finishing Year 12 at Moama Anglican Grammar.
It will be the realisation of a seven-year dream for the farm kid who decided dentistry was for him after being gifted a Dremel 3000 rotary tool as a child.
“I’d use it for things like engraving, sanding in nooks and crannies and wood working,” Mr Smith said.
The tool was also similar to a dental drill and showed Mr Smith how enjoyable precise, hands-on work can be.
“The scholarship will be a massive push forward for me because it’s an expensive course with a lot of equipment to purchase,” Mr Smith said.
Mr Smith is headed to La Trobe University’s Bendigo campus and said the cost of on-campus living, which can get very expensive, will also be lessened by the $30,000 scholarship — which is spread into $10,000 chunks over three years.
“I’m very thankful to my teachers at Moama Anglican Grammar. I’m also thankful that La Trobe has their course in a rural area. I wasn’t keen to go to the city,” he said.
“Being a country person I want to stay in the country. Ideally I’d be doing dentistry in rural communities and farming on the side to let some steam off.”
The COVID-19 pandemic impacted Year 11 and 12 schooling for Mr Smith, but he said home learning helped prepare him for university.
“The biggest thing for me was that my history, maths and English teachers all left at the end of Year 11 so I had to get used to three new teachers and their grading styles.”
Adelaide ahoy: Muckatah’s Scarlett Grinter is off to South Australia to study ag science. She crossed University of Melbourne off the list because she didn’t want end up at Dookie (too close to home).
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Scarlett Grinter is leaving north-east Victoria and packing her bags for the University of Adelaide where she will study a Bachelor of Agricultural Science.
The Cobram Secondary College student was dux of her year level and will be the only one going into ag.
“There were 22 of us doing VCE, the rest were doing VCAL,” Miss Grinter said.
“Out of all of those people I’m the only one going into ag, not even the kids doing traineeships are doing anything in ag.
“A lot of kids are deferring university and taking a gap year but I don’t trust myself to take a break.”
Miss Grinter said her scholarship would go towards her rent in Adelaide — which had been an eye-opening expense for the country kid.
Miss Grinter said she’d been set on vet school as a child but midway through the pandemic, while spending more time on the family farm, it clicked that farm life was where she wanted to be.
“Ag science is nice and broad, which is half the reason I’ve chosen it,” she said.
“You can do virtually anything with it and figure out if you want to specialise in things like genetics or agronomy later. It’s not an eight-year commitment like veterinary.”
The mass exodus to university has already started, with orientation weeks across the country beginning on February 21.
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