Pushing classroom boundaries

Publication date
Tuesday, 29 Jan 2013
Body

The PhB program is just an amazing group of students

Sam Backwell has been pulling things apart to see how they work for as long as he can remember. This curiosity has since developed into a passion for the physical sciences. “At school, I took the approach of choosing subjects that interested me. That took me down the sciences road pretty early.”

In 2011, Sam attended the National Youth Science Forum (NYSF) at ANU, a program in which year 11 students come to universities to ‘test drive’ careers in science. “I was interested in getting a glimpse of uni life, how a university worked and meeting other like-minded people. It gave me a lot of motivation going in to year 12.“

Sam was chosen by NYSF to join 80 students from across the world for a six week program at the Research Science Institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, known as MIT. “While it shares a lot of similarities with NYSF, such as amazing lectures and a close knit group of incredible people, RSI is unique in offering a four week self-contained research project."

When Sam returned to Australia, he completed his final year of high school and decided to enroll in the Bachelor of Philosophy or PhB program at ANU. “The research component of the PhB program was a big draw card.” he says. “I wanted to continue that sort of self-contained guided research I had done at RSI. The backing of the research schools at ANU is amazing and there is world class research going on in all fields. On top of that, the PhB program is just an amazing group of students.”

Sam is using his first few semesters with the PhB program to explore his interests in chemistry, physics and maths. “I am still finding things that interest me in all three areas. Hopefully after doing some research in a bunch of fields I am interested in, I will find one that clicks and do honours in that field.”

“The PhB is less about being top of you class and more about being the person who is pushed beyond the bounds of the class. The ATAR requirement is quite intimidating but what they are really looking for is people who will write the next text book rather than memorise the current one.”

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