Cyber-bullies, no! Co-op scholarships, yes!

Scholarships are crazy things. Well, maybe ‘crazy’ isn’t the right word. In fact, they’re not crazy at all. It’s completely the wrong word! Anyway, there are lots of different sorts of scholarships, so perhaps the word in this stand-first should be ‘varied’. Smart Start checks out an industry sponsored scholarship (co-op scholarship) and a bright spark called Chris Webster.

Chris Webster was already thinking about IT as an option back in Year 10 at Barker College. His interest was sparked on a school visit to university.

Chris received a number of scholarship offers at the end of Year 12 but chose the Bachelor of Information Technology Co-op Scholarship course at UTS.

As part of the program, Chris spent his first industry placement at EDS, a large international IT outsourcing company. EDS completes work for organisations such as the Commonwealth Bank and Australian Customs.

“I was lucky enough to be placed as one of two business analysts working on a $2 million project for CBA, after only one academic semester at UTS,” says Chris.

“I worked with the team for the duration of the project, seeing all phases of the applications development life-cycle.

“Watching an idea transform from an initial concept all the way through to implementation was amazing. I was able to fully understand how applications development occurs in the real world – something you can’t learn from a university textbook.”

Chris received a ‘commended’ in the Elizabeth Hastings Memorial Award for Student Community Contribution category of the UTS Human Rights Awards in 2006 for his website: www.cyberbullying.info

Chris created this website when he was in Year 12. It is designed for students to take an interactive journey through a detective’s office to learn more about cyber-bullying.

Chris conducts workshops and gives presentations to students, parents, teachers and heads of schools, with the aim of generating awareness and incorporating this strategy into school policies and pastoral care programs.

Where would Chris like to be when he has finished his course?

“I enjoy applications development and would initially like to work as a business analyst on a project team.

“However, I’m also interested the more technical aspects of how systems are designed and understand that this is fundamental to developing IT systems

“Eventually I hope to move towards managing projects and into senior IT management for a large corporation.”

The Bachelor of IT Scholarship Program is a course with a business focus, designed to meet the needs of employers by combining information systems knowledge with an understanding of IT management and strategic planning. The degree is an intensive three-year course which combines two years of full-time study and two six-month industry placements with sponsor organisations.

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