Sam Wills
AUTHOR: Mike Butler DATE: 06.09.07 ISSUE 1, 2007
All-round excellence
Academic tenacity started early for Sam Wills. Despite having to travel four hours from his coastal home town of Hawks Nest every day to get to Merewether High School in Newcastle, he achieved a UAI of 99.85.
Now UNSW is rising to the challenge of stimulating and encouraging excellence in such high calibre undergraduates, affirms Sam, a resident at the University's New College who is in his final year of a Bachelor of Commerce in Actuarial Studies and Finance.
| UNSW is rising to the challenge of simulating and encouraging excellence in high calibre undergraduates, says Co-op Scholarship recipient Sam Wills. |
He chose the course because: “I thoroughly enjoyed mathematics and saw it [actuarial studies] as a great way to practically apply it along with having the variety of being able to study other subjects like commerce and finance.”
Through the UNSW Co-op Program, Sam has worked in a range of financial sector roles, and his learning agility shone through as the member of a winning undergraduate team in the JP Morgan Australian Investment Banking Competition.
On top of this, he has maintained a busy schedule of co-curricular activities including playing touch football through the University’s competition, drama, debating and musical activities. As a tutor, he has enjoyed the achievement of helping disadvantaged students raise their marks from a low Pass average to a Credit.
For two consecutive years, he spent his holidays working in the Philippines and Fiji on community housing projects with the Habitat for Humanity Global Village Program organised through the University.
The experience saw him lead a 14-volunteer team on a house-building project, managing the logistics of a $40,000 budget and co-ordinating activities on and off the building site, and presented “a way to travel while doing something constructive at the same time”, he says.