In 1976, as a 16 year old, I was trying to figure out which way was up. I spent most of my life living in countries in which I was not born. I was a perpetual foreigner. I went to an amzing international school, a privilege not afforded to many.
But the mores and the traditions of my parents imposed a standard and requirement over me in terms of my education and future. I was dux in Physics. duxs in English Literature. What on earth did you do with some young person who had confused arts and science?
At the school I went to, there was a choice to either traverse the traditional English education system of 'O' Levels and 'A' Levels or to go down the path (as I wanted to) of the International Baccalaureate, the IB. The discussion about which one never happened and I was sent down the old traditional path that was familiar to my father.
My parents made it clear to me from the start that I was to become a lawyer. I ignored this for a while but as I tried to find my own way I was forced back into the constraints and myopic vision of what my parents wished of me.
And to ensure that I pursued the noble career of a lawyer, at 17 I was sent to the UK (from where both my mother and father grew up and where I was born) to plead my case with all of the major universities there.
I had no bloody idea what I was meant to do or what I should have expected. I remember freezing to death on a train from London to Exeter in a suit, to meet the head of the Law School of the University of Exeter.
I travelled across the UK to many amazing Universities there and fronted up to the heads of a number of law schools. I did that for my parents. It was not me but at that time I believed that they knew best.
I will readily admit that I lost confidence and focus. I worked hard on the exams that my parents directed me to do. I dropped out of the science and humanties stuff that I enjoyed and cared about. Because apparently education was not about enjoyment but purpose. Mainly the purpose dictated by my parents.
So I sat my final exams. And well before the results came out, a family trip back to the UK to trot me off to one of the finest Universities there and do my family proud.
We stayed with my father's family there. I do not recall anything more soul destroying than seeing my father's face when the exam results came through. I had not failed, but I had barely passed. Rejection after rejection came through from all of the universities I had applied for, including the university from which my father had graduated. In his eyes I had clearly failed.
My parents then left me in the UK with one of my beloved uncles with the strict instruction to "sort it out".
A painful part of growing up is to work out what you do next. I had no idea. My Uncle, my father's youngest brother, figured out that I knew nothing about the English education system, and spent weeks researching it. He discovered an Institute of Higher Education (not a University) in Essex, that might be prepared to give me a go.
They didn't care about my exam scores. They were prepared to have a chat and see what I had. Such was the respect and love I had for my uncle, I did just that.
I was accepted into the BA Law (CNAA) course which was not an LLB but kind of the less than University equivalent.
It must have been some serendipity. In the library they had a Commodore C64. I played with it for quite a bit and wrote stuff ... but was then told that I was a law/arts student and only science bods were permitted to use this exclusive gear.
Halfway through, my father visited and met my lecturers and tutors and told them that I needed to be transferred to a "Real" (aka elite) University. To say the least, I was devastated.
Thankfully, those lecturers rallied around me. It was my choice. I did not want to disappoint my parents but .... it was going so well where I was.
So I stayed. And graduated. I got a degree in Law from an institution that cared about me. It wasn't a University at the time. It was a college of higher education.
My father was not available for my graduation ceremony as he had business to attend to on another part of the planet.
My parents insisted that I was to become a maritime lawyer - a rare specialisation. I flubbed a post grad course and in my desparation, enrolled at Lincolns Inn to qualify as a barrister. By that time my parents had already abandoned me, primarily because I had got engaged to a woman of whom they did not approve.
I am still the husband of that same woman and with whom we have two strong and amazing offspring.
Having no funds to survive with, I worked night shift at a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in Earls Court in London. It funded my education through to qualifying as a barrister at law from Lincolns Inn.
I could not afford chambers in the Inns of Court in London so I managed to return to Singapore, scrape through a conversion course there and was eventually admitted to the profession there. I joined a maritime law firm there and spent most of my time in the Supreme Court fighting the good fight for our ship owning clients.
But my wife, a corporate professional and expert, could not work in Singapore. After some years of her working across the border in Malaysia and me closing in on partnership, we ended up compromising and moving to Ballarat where I took up a lecturing post at what was then the Ballarat College of Advanced Education. Most of you will now know this insutition as Federation University.
I taught business law there for 9 years from 1987. I always intended to take up an offer in Melbourne to go back to Maritime Law practice. But it never happened. Like my dad, who was also an academic, I enjoyed the teaching and learning profession. Unlike him, I got distracted and discovered the Internet.
I have an Honours Degree (CNAA) from what was then the Chelmer Institute of Higher Education. I never got that Masters Degree I studied for at University College London. I qualified as a Barrister at Law from Lincolns Inn. And I am qualified as an Advocate and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Singapore.
Barbara and I started a little company called NetConnect Communications in 1994. Merged with Chariot Internet in 2000. We now run one of Western Victoria's oldest and most established IT companies.
I didn't get a degree or an education from a so called elite University in the UK. I was not defined by my 'A' levels, or in modern Australian terms, by my ATAR.
History and peers will judge whether I did OK or not. But where I started was not where I am now. What expectations were imposed on me failed to land me at a place where I wanted to be.
I often reflect back and feel gratitude for the amazing opportunites I have had; I am one of the most privileged of children in the community in which I grew up. I also reflect on my failure to meet expectations I did not understand or in respect of which I could not relate. I am still confused to this day.
But I do not think anymore it is arrogant of me to suggest that I was not defined by my abysmal Year 12 scores. In current parlance, I was not defined by my ATAR.
And it is my experience that allows me to state great pride and association with Federation University. The kind of institution that took me in based on who I was rather than what my scores were, worked me hard, made me question myself and still gave me an amazing platform to allow me to push through.
I've gone on to do a few other things. Not so much law. But the ability to have a platform on which to build your own foundations, wherever they may lead, and to be supported and respected, no matter where in the journey you are at, is very much a thing I care about.
Have no illusion that success, however you define it, is solely in your hands. But I do so hope that you'll know that you will be able to reach out if you need, for those resources and tools that will make you who you want to be .....