{"id":8249,"date":"2021-08-10T08:21:08","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T00:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/scholarships-provide-healing-hands\/"},"modified":"2022-12-08T13:21:30","modified_gmt":"2022-12-08T05:21:30","slug":"scholarships-provide-healing-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/scholarships-provide-healing-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"Scholarships provide healing hands"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nathaniel Harris expects his university education will not only benefit his own life, but also the wellbeing of his Indigenous community in Western Australia.<\/p>\n

Harris spent his childhood in the mining town of Collie in rural WA, in a community that didn\u2019t know how accessible a university education could be.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought university was only for girls and white people,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n

Later, as a young adult, he soul-searched those assumptions and set out to give higher education a chance. Although he\u2019d left high school without an ATAR, Harris was eligible for a pathway into Curtin to study the one-year Indigenous Pre-medicine and Health enabling course.<\/p>\n

His education was supported by equity scholarships from Curtin and the Australian Government.<\/p>\n

He recalls the joy he felt when he heard he\u2019d been awarded his scholarships.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was doing back-flips! I didn\u2019t expect anything \u2013 and then it came through \u2013 it was like a ton of bricks fell off my back.\u201d<\/p>\n

He passed the enabling course with flying colours, with grades high enough to gain entry to Curtin\u2019s four-year occupational therapy degree. Continuing support from the Curtin STAR Scholarship<\/a> was an added bonus.<\/p>\n

\"Curtin
Harris is now learning to help people who’ve suffered injury or disability live happy, healthy lives.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cBeing a mature-age student I\u2019ve got a lot of bills to pay. The scholarships made a huge difference \u2013 helping me to buy books, lab coats and equipment. And they help me pay my rent and study to the best of my ability,\u201d Harris explains.<\/p>\n

Harris is now learning how to help people who\u2019ve experienced injury, illness or disability to achieve independence, better health and satisfaction in their lives.<\/p>\n

And with his future career as an occupational therapist in clear sight, he\u2019s also looking forward to taking his knowledge and skills back to his community.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love to open my own mobile clinic and help Indigenous people outside the city where there are few or no health professionals,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I encourage everyone, especially Indigenous men, to see uni as a pathway. There\u2019s so much opportunity here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although he\u2019d left high school without an ATAR, Harris was eligible for a pathway into Curtin to study the one-year Indigenous Pre-medicine and Health enabling course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":8250,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,3,82],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-8249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander","category-campus-and-global-community","category-society-and-culture"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"STAR Scholarship applications for 2022 are now open","content":"

The Curtin STAR Scholarship<\/a> is designed for those\u00a0who may not have an opportunity to attend university otherwise, due to a low socio-economic background and\u00a0financial hardship.<\/p>\n

Apply now or explore our other merit and equity scholarships.<\/a><\/p>\n","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/Nathaniel-1-1000x500.jpg","author_meta":{"first_name":"Anita","last_name":"Shore","display_name":"Anita Shore"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 05:53:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8249"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=8249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}