Sunny outlook starts at Fairway Summer School

A group of 83 Year 12 students arrived at The University of Western Australia for Fairway Summer School last month.

The Fairway program is part of Student Equity and focuses on providing academic and social support to students facing financial challenges and other disruptions to their high school education.

The event in January saw students, including three from regional WA, participate in study skills and academic activities on campus and stay overnight in Uni Hall. 

Fairway Ambassador and Commerce student Lisa Guo was first involved with Fairway UWA as a year 12 student in 2020 and volunteered to help at this year’s camp.

“From my personal experience, Fairway really brought me out of my shell, motivated and encouraged students and provided academic support and opportunities,” Ms Guo said.

“After such a great experience I wanted to give back to Fairway so I applied this year to become a Fairway ambassador.” 

Despite the warm weather and mask mandate the students enjoyed four jam-packed days of activities and events including WACE revision in English and Maths, Speed Networking, Fairway assignment work, tours of Reid Library and a quiz night. 

Ms Guo attended Fairway Summer School in 2020 and said the quiz night was a personal highlight, as it was for many students this year too.

“Quiz night gave the students an opportunity to showcase and test their general and specific knowledge in a friendly yet competitive way,” Ms Guo said. 

“It allowed them to learn new things but also participate in an enjoyable night full of fun and laughter.”

There were also sessions from Future Students and the Health and Medical Sciences School, the European and Classical Languages department, Blackstone Law Society, Earth Science and Girls in Engineering. 

The Fairway team and ambassadors look forward to working with these students throughout the year in the school holidays with online and on campus events.

“I look forward to continuing building stronger connections with the students and ambassadors through the other events planned, such as Winter School and April Masterclass,” Ms Guo said. 

“During these, I hope to continue to make a positive impact on students by providing support and helping them prepare for their tertiary studies.”