Written by Jacqueline Hermann, UTS Bachelor of Midwifery student
1. What inspired you to study midwifery?
Personally, the decision to study midwifery was a huge career change. Partly inspired by my personal experiences of pregnancy and birth and also by the realisation that I needed my career to really mean something to me.
Combining those two factors midwifery was the perfect study path to go down and everyday I am grateful for making that decision to make such a big change.
2. What are your career goals?
Currently the plan is to focus on completing my degree, successfully obtaining my professional registration as a midwife and starting work as a graduate midwife.
As I have progressed through the degree, I have realised there are so many different career pathways that midwifery can take me (clinical midwifery, perinatal mental health, lactation, education just to name a few) and right now I am just keeping my options option to all of them.
3. What’s it like to be a student at UTS?
As a midwifery student at UTS you are part of a small cohort of around 60 students. I love that we all get to know one another as these fellow students become an invaluable source of support.
Also, the academic staff are so accessible and supportive and love seeing us succeed. In addition, the clinical facilities available to the students for learning practical skills in labs and simulations are amazing.
4. What’s been your favourite subject so far?
That’s a hard question to answer… each subject adds a different perspective and skill set to our midwifery bag of skills! Our Midwifery Practice (practical) subject each semester has the added aspect of being linked to our clinical placement blocks as well as the Continuity of Midwifery Care experiences, which for me has been the most rewarding aspect of the course so far.
5. What’s your best advice for managing your work, study and social commitments in this degree?
Midwifery is fulltime and it can be hard to balance, but it certainly is achievable with a little bit of forward planning.
My advice is to ensure you have a supportive network around you to help out, keep a shared calendar of all of your commitments, and remain on top of all of your assessment tasks.
Also really thinking about when your continuity of care women are due to give birth and try and have them due around the same time of year to minimise the time you are on-call for.
Find out more about studying midwifery at UTS
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