By George, Millie’s Got It

Like many regional students, Millie has always liked the idea of being close to home, family and the farm. Nevertheless, she often found herself wondering if there was a better way she could contribute to farming, business and the surrounding conversations.

Despite being a self-confessed homebody, the bigger questions and the post school travel bug took Millie on a journey of discovery – otherwise known as the gap year. This experience gave her time to think and opened up her world. On her return to Australia, she headed to Armidale to study at the University of New England.

With her love of the land ever present, Millie started studying Agribusiness. Ever grateful for the chance to participate in tertiary education, Millie concedes that at the time she couldn’t help but look forward to being home. Unfortunately, like so many from the bush visiting home, this now needed to be well-planned, given it was a 16-hour round trip. To ease the homesickness, she spoke with her parents most days, “just to chat and check what was happening at the farm.”

A farming income can be unreliable. Add unpredictable weather patterns and an international pandemic, this income became almost non-existent. Millie was acutely aware of the financial strain her studies added, saying, “I’m not someone who likes to have the help in regard to financial aspects, especially from my parents as they already do so much.”

MAKING THE MOST OF OPPORTUNITY

Receiving the grant from CEF Nyngan as well as a national Findex Community Fund – CEF scholarship, “made me feel empowered and recognized for what I was doing in my studies. It enabled me to purchase textbooks which I stopped purchasing after my first trimester as they were way too expensive. It was difficult. I was constantly trying to find part time work like babysitting to earn some extra cash on the side as my pocket money,” Millie explains. 

Millie is a creative and a true learner at heart. She needed those textbooks because she wants to understand everything about what she is doing – a rare quality in our world today.

Her creative nature and ‘need to know’ came to the fore as she studied. She realised not only did she have a passion for agriculture, she was eager to learn and understand all aspects of business. In Millie’s second year, she made the move to a business degree. Not just to follow her passion or for employment, but for her own personal growth. Management to develop her leadership skills, marketing to release her creative side, accounting to satisfy the analytical side of her brain, public relations to develop her people skills.

Millie says she has often struggled with people skills, confessing she can be a nervous individual. Despite this, she is a strong believer in pushing one’s limits and making the most of opportunities, no matter how personally challenging they might be. She says, “I found myself pushing out of my comfort zone in regard to applying to summer programs and communicating with older people in employment positions which I aspired to.” It is this growth, personal achievement and finding self-acceptance that she says are highlights from her time at university.

In her own words, Millie has never been one to ‘toot her own horn,’ a phrase that makes you smile because it is a mindset so many from rural and regional Australia can relate to. She says, “However, it also comes with age to learn that life is actually short and so many people grab onto opportunities because they are able to speak up.” You could be forgiven for finding humour in these words coming from such a young woman but, they are delivered as the words of a wise soul, one that has already been around the block once or twice.

Having faced her fears and made those calls, she knows more often than not, people are warm and welcoming and more than willing to help. When we are often only presented with the worst in the world, this is something we forget, so we are fortunate to have someone like Millie to remind us of the good in people.

They are the lessons learned that inspire her advice for other regional students, inn fact, for most of us! “Send that email enquiring about a job. Find a phone number and make a call! This scared me, to ring a stranger and introduce myself .” This very sentence is one many people can relate to and unlike Millie, something many of us never quite get the hang of.