I am currently employed full time in the Royal Australian Navy as an Electronics Technician. During my career, and especially the last six years, I have been closely involved in large projects like deep level maintenance periods for our ships as well as design, maintenance and fit of external communication centres on some of our most cutting edge technologies. This involvement in large projects and getting to see the end result of many different agencies and stakeholders coming together to achieve something collectively, has awoken a thirst for knowledge in the area and inspired me to undertake this graduate program in my own time and paid for by myself.
Whilst working full time I have already completed the Graduate Certificate of Project Management offered by Curtin University last year with at least a Credit average. I am posted to a shore establishment again this year with internet and campus access, unlike at sea, so I am taking the opportunity to further the qualification to the Diploma this year. Since undertaking this study I have seen the vast differences between the private sector and how we run projects in the government sector and more specifically the RAN. It is my hope that with these qualifications and access to the latest techniques and studies, that I will be able to help the Navy update its thinking and perform our projects with more efficiency and with a smarter approach. This can be done from my potential upcoming posting to the Project Management Cell here in Western Australia overlooking the new and existing projects surrounding our west-based fleet.
The postgraduate degree I am studying at Curtin University has been extremely forward-thinking and engaging. The biggest surprise I have found since undertaking it is how nearly everything in life can be seen as a project, of varying size and duration. I have found myself using these techniques in regular life, like a financial assessment and project schedule for a recent holiday I took or the comparative lifetime cost analysis between two vehicles I was interested in buying to decide what was the better investment.
Furthering my knowledge through university, especially postgraduate has been an aspiration for myself for the last decade, and one that I was not sure I would ever get the opportunity to achieve.