BEFORE the National Youth Science Forum, Kooringal High School student Arupam Raman thought she had her life planned out.
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She was confident she knew which university she would attend, which course she would study and what career path she would follow.
While her certainty was the cause of envy amongst her peers, Arupam was adamant the greatest gift she received from the National Youth Science Forum (NYSF) was a sense of confusion – as unlimited new possibilities were revealed.
“I thought I knew what I wanted to do, where I wanted to study and where I would eventually start working but, after the forum I have so many new options to consider,” she said.
“While I was at the forum I was directly exposed to various fields of science and the many career opportunities within each one that I had never considered.”
The NYSF is a 12-day program for students moving into year 12 who are thinking about a career in science, engineering and technology.
The forum, held in January in Canberra, brought together 144 students from across Australia and the world who have a passion and interest for science.
“Before attending the National youth Science Forum I would never have imagined I would have the chance to be part of such a big group of students who all have the same enthusiasm for science as I do,” Arupam said.
Arupam admits she knew little about the forum when former Kooringal High School science co-ordinator David Dunn advised her to nominate for the event.
“The first step was to submit and application and find a Rotary club that would sponsor and support us during the selection process,” she said.
“I was lucky enough to gain the support of the Sunrise Rotary Club and went on to the district interview in Young.
“Soon after I was notified via email that I had been one of six Wagga students selected attend the forums and one of two for the session A in Canberra.”
Sunrise Rotary Club president Alan Sharpe said the club was thrilled when Arupam was selected to attend the forum.
“It is extremely difficult to gain selection for this forum,” Alan said.
“You have to do very well to get selected.
“Over the last 15 years our club has enjoyed strong success with Kooringal High School, and have been proud to help so many students attend the forum.”
Arupam is quick to describe the forum as an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and finds it
difficult to single out on activity, trip or program as the highlight of the event.
“We attended six laboratory visits with our interest group and of all of these my favourite was pathology,” she said.
“We visited a mortuary and organ museum where we were shown various preserved organs including kidneys, hearts and lungs.
“It was fascinating, although the preserved hand was a little creepy.”
Along with the laboratory visits, the students also took part in numerous debates on a range of scientific issues and wrote and performed speeches on a variety of topics.
“I really enjoyed the forum debates because it was great to hear and think about other people’s opinions on topics like ‘Is Science the new God’,” she said.
“The debates were fascinating because people were so passionate about expressing their thoughts.
“The first debate we did was so funny because no matter how hard the staff tried to move the debate forward, someone would always have something they really wanted to say that would bring it right back to the
start.”