CQUni knows Leigh

Leigh Stitz
Bachelor of Science with Honours,

Marine science has always been my passion, I love anything to do with water! I grew up by the ocean and even into adulthood we have always lived somewhere by the sea. As a child, I was always playing in creeks and rock pools and then I started diving and snorkelling. I have an affinity with water which is hard to deny, it’s my happy place.

It was sort of like a dream come true when I found CQUniversity while I was flipping through a QTAC book. I really connected with the subjects on offer, environmental science and water science, more so than any other uni I looked at. It was exactly the degree I was looking for.

When I originally decided to go back to uni I was living on the Sunshine Coast and studying externally (online) was extremely important to me, so I could do it part-time. The flexibility was there. There’s no way I could have studied internally (on campus) when I started; my children were so young, but as time went on I loved it so much that I decided to move up to Rockhampton to complete the degree full time there. The uni allowed me to test the water (excuse the pun) and dip my toes into study before immersing myself completely. It was my chance to do something that I really wanted to do, not something my parents told me to do or what society was telling me to do – but to follow my passion.

The best thing about studying at CQUni was the small class sizes! You feel like more than just a number and you really have a relationship with the lecturers and researchers. You could always ring them or email them when you needed help, there was always an open channel of communication between the lecturers and students. There was a lot of individual care and support which really personalised my learning journey.

I have an analytical mind and CQUniversity enabled me to expand this ability to find problems within my field and ultimately, to learn how to fix them. The more I studied, the more I was able to see where there were gaps in the information, what things haven’t been looked at before and what needed to be ‘fixed’. The best thing about the world of science is that there is always more to learn and new territory to cover. CQUniversity really encouraged me to think outside the box and I really feel like I’m making a difference.

If you have an idea of something that you might want to study, I say go for it! Even if you’re scared that you’re not smart enough? At the end of the day, it’s persistence, hard work and passion which win out over intelligence. It’s a matter of loving something and wanting to make a real difference. I never thought I would come this far, but with the support of CQUniversity, I was able to achieve my dreams.