Students in the Year 9-10 Creative Writing elective had a special visit from two Newcomb Secondary College alumni last week, where they learnt about being a professional writer.

Newcomb alumni Caroline Milburn (Class of 1978) and Wes Cusworth (Class of 1982) were both journalists during their careers. Caroline worked at The Age for many years, while Wes would be well-known to regional audiences as the WIN News sports presenter.

Wes and Caroline told us about their career journeys. They both became teachers in their early careers, before discovering a passion for journalism. Caroline is now CEO and co-founder of Ourschool, and Wes wears a few hats including marketing director, MC, video producer and ghostwriter of Gary Ablett Jnr’s autobiography.

Students also heard about journalism’s role in society, tips for effective writing, potential career paths for writers and general career advice.

Here are some of the students’ reflections about the incursion:

“I learnt that you might not know what you want to do with your career yet. You might start with a job you don't like but you can change your mind. We also had a turn at writing our own newspaper article and it was hard.” - Navarta Monaghan

“I learnt that writing non-fiction is much harder than writing fiction.” - Cody Englert

“I learnt that writing creative stories is more fun than having to write a true story about someone or something because I get to be as creative as I want instead of having to research everything the person has done.” - Lachlan Novak

“When we had two journalists come to see us, they talked about how they got to where they are now. But it wasn't a straight path. There were lots of different ones leading to where they are now.” - Georgia Johnson

“When the journalists came, they gave us a tip about when writing an article to pretend that we are writing to one person.” - Cameron Stein

Thank you to Caroline and Wes for taking the time to come back to our school and help our students! We reconnected with them through the Ourschool not-for-profit alumni service, which is working with Newcomb Secondary College to build a supportive alumni community.