For Scott Worboys, starting a full time job after submitting his final assessment piece took just one week.

Working as a business analyst in Brisbane, Scott from ANU with a Bachelor of Science, which he describes as the “Swiss Army knife” of degrees.

As Scott explains, “a lot of people see it as black and white” expecting that a science degree leads to a job in science.

But, “a biology degree can take you to a lot of places. You’ve just got to look in the right corners.”

According to Scott, it’s the highly transferable skills of the Bachelor of Science that lead graduates to job opportunities.

Scott was hired as part of the STEM ICT Professional Scheme’s inaugural intake with the Department of Human Services. He says the position officers the “two golden pillars” he was looking for in his first job out of university: it’s permanent and full-time.

Helping thousands of students and families access vital government services, Scott describes his job as one he “couldn’t be happier with.”

His life as a business analyst is “a complete 180” from what he was doing in class, he says, but it’s the skills he learned in his degree that made him feel “100 percent prepared” to take on the challenge of working.

Scott says he didn’t worry about job outcomes when graduating. In fact, he didn’t even begin to apply for jobs until the second half of his final semester when he began to think about how he could challenge himself in a professional context.

“I just decided to follow through with my interests,” he says. “I just chose subjects that interested me in science, which gave me a lot of flexibility.”

When asked about how his degree helped him get the job, Scott laughed, explaining that his major in Biology is nothing like being a business analysis, but it’s the skills he learned that are “worth their weight in gold.”

“Thinking critically, thinking analytically, thinking independently, finding new solutions to different problems are really, really valuable tools”

Scott also found that taking advantage of the wide range of extra-curricular opportunities at ANU helped his employment prospects.

When applying for jobs, a lot of employers ask for experience, but “if you do some extra-curricular activities… increase your skills… complimenting the academic side of things.”

Having a degree from ANU also impressed employers, he says. Growing up in Canberra, with “the best university in the country just next door” made the decision of where to study an easy one, he says. And one he doesn’t regret.

With Australia’s most employable graduates for three years running, ANU offers students more than just the opportunity to study.