Want to stand out from the graduate pack? Volunteering might be the answer, writes Alexander Symonds.
It's one thing to learn in the classroom. It's quite another to learn on an ex-British navy ship, treating sick patients from villages along the Amazon.
University of Notre Dame Australia medical student Joshua Laing did just that. He spent three weeks aboard a medical ship run by the Amazon Hope medical project (funded by the Vine Trust), treating about 30 to 40 patients a day. It was, as he puts it, "an experience of a lifetime".
"Working in a location with such a remote, specific and challenging population forced me to throw the textbooks and hospital guidelines out the window," he says. "The experience stimulated every part of my scientific deductive brain to problem-solve."
With limited access to medicine and a "total deprivation" of tools such as blood tests and X-rays, Laing was forced to sharpen his clinical skills.
This experience was part of the "social justice" component of Notre Dame's medical program. Students must propose and complete a project that delivers service to the community or individuals and complete a 3000-word reflection afterwards.
The dean of the University of Notre Dame Australia's school of medicine, Sydney, Christine Bennett, says the project is much more than a "measure of good".
"What's important is in having that reflection and learning and in adding perspective to the privilege of being a doctor and having the opportunity to make a difference to the lives of so many people," she says.
Whether students float down the Amazon on a medical ship or dedicate their time to a cause that's closer to home, volunteering can be a useful way to not only contribute but differentiate oneself in the eyes of employers.
For years, Rik Thwaites has been encouraging students to seek out volunteering opportunities.
"What I say to students is, you have got to somehow set yourself apart from all the other students that are graduating at the same time," the sub dean international at Charles Sturt University's faculty of science says. "A degree might get you an interview but it certainly doesn't guarantee you a job."
Thwaites adds that volunteering enables students to learn in ways that are impossible in a classroom.
"Students can learn very well the content that is required of them. But volunteering overseas stretches that learning by taking them away from their comfortable area of home."
Others say that by volunteering, students can show employers tangible examples of their range of experiences and their maturity, rather than simply telling recruiters they have such skills.
"I think employers can look at these students and say they've got a bit of altruism, they've got a bit of interest, they've got a bit of motivation," says Stephen Wearing, an associate professor in Leisure Sport and Tourism at the University of Technology Sydney's business school.
In the early 1990s, Wearing co-founded Youth Challenge Australia (YCA), a non-profit organisation that places young people in community-driven development projects.
Wearing helped set up YCA to allow UTS and other university students to contribute to the development of communities around the world. The university chipped in funding and gave Wearing time to establish the independent organisation.
While studying psychology at Macquarie University, Natalie Grimm took a YCA trip to Vanuatu. Initially planning to help with building projects, she found out a week before departure that such help was no longer needed. Her group quickly changed tack and organised a youth skills summit for locals instead, holding talks on leadership, health and business issues. "It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do and the greatest experience I've ever had," she says.
Volunteering can also significantly change students' career directions. Early Capangpangan was wrapping up a double degree in arts and fine arts at the University of New South Wales when an Asian history course sparked an interest in volunteering.
"I found the subject interesting because my background is in the Philippines," she says. "That's where my parents are from. I decided I wanted to go on a volunteering opportunity and I made that point with my professor, who gave me a choice of NGOs to work with."
Capangpangan spent six weeks working with Likhaan, a women's health non-government organisation based in Manila. She was involved in lobbying for a new reproductive health bill, as well as taking part in outreach programs focused on sexual health and contraception.
After the volunteering experience, Capangpangan changed her career path, starting a master's degree in international relations and chasing work in the areas of foreign aid and human rights advocacy.
"I hope I'll end up somewhere like the United Nations or any of their agencies, such as UNICEF, which would definitely be a dream, or AusAID if I wanted to end up in government," she says. "But there are also other slightly smaller not-for-profit organisations around the world that inspire me."