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Hi, my name is Patrick. I grew up in St Georges Basin. I studied a Bachelor of Commerce, majoring in accountancy. I graduated from the Shoalhaven campus of the University of ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½.

I was a first generation university student. From a very young age mum and dad were very encouraging for me to try and get some formal education and and assisted me to try and pursue that at all, at all costs, basically.

I guess it come to me at an early age that I wanted to do accounting and commerce, and then choosing the Shoalhaven campus as a place to study for me, this was a logical choice basically. The small class size, the good tutors, really provided for great learning outcomes. So just a couple of mature age people that were coming from different careers, people that were working for local businesses, that accounting was a career progression for them.

It's important that we have these regional campuses and that our regional campuses are connecting students with business and that, you know, students at the University, in the business sector are working together to try and create a collaborative approach. But I truly see the role of the campus as that gateway, that connection piece between students, whether they're at high school, studying students at the moment and that connection to local business, basically. And so many of my local businesses, that are clients of mine, and desperate for more people who were in such a skill shortage here on the South Coast.

So it's really important that we tell people that that there is career opportunity here. And I think the University can play a big factor in trying to make that happen.

We're running a pilot program, which is a new and refurbished mentor program, and we're really hoping to mentor young professionals and university students and try and keep them in the Shoalhaven as a key outcome.

I've got a month old daughter at home and really looking forward to raising her here locally. I love to give back to the community and for me, work is is still exciting. I'm really happy with my career now. I'm really enjoying the work life balance I can achieve on the South Coast and that's exciting as well.