Chris Webster

Chris Webster was already thinking about IT as an option back in year 10 when his interest was sparked on a school visit to UTS:IT. When Chris really started investigating course options in Year 12 he compared IT courses at the different universities,

"The UTS degree was much more flexible, allowing me more scope to focus on subjects that appealed to me, not knowing at the end of year 12 what my interests would be in a year or so. The facilities at UTS:IT were very modern and impressive too."

Chris received a number of scholarship offers at the end of year 12 but chose the Bachelor of Information Technology Co-op Scholarship course at UTS.

"The course has been excellent so far. Subjects in semester 1 set us up with a basic knowledge of key skills we would need in semester 2 where we were thrown in the deep end for our first industry placement with one of the sponsor organisations. Now in my second year, I'm finding my studies so much more relevant, because I can see where they relate back to work in the 'real world'."

Chris spent his first industry placement at EDS, a large international IT outsourcing company, who complete work for organisations such as the Commonwealth Bank, Australian Customs and the Bank of Queensland.

"I was lucky enough to be placed as one of two Business Analysts working on a $2 million project for the Commonwealth Bank, after only one academic semester at UTS. I worked with the team for the duration of the project, seeing all phases of the applications development life-cycle. Watching an idea transform from an initial concept all the way through to implementation was amazing. I was able to fully understand how applications development occurs in the real world - something you can't learn from a university textbook."

Chris received a Commended in the Elizabeth Hastings Memorial Award for Student Community Contribution category of the UTS Human Rights Awards in 2006 for his website Cyberbullying - the best weapon is awareness.

Chris created this interactive website when he was in Year 12 at Barker College. The website was designed for students to direct themselves on an interactive journey through a detective's office to learn more about cyberbullying. Actively promoting awareness amongst educators to enable them to recognise the powerful role technology plays in the lives of teenagers, Chris conducts workshops and gives presentations to students, parents, teachers and heads of schools, with the aim of generating awareness and incorporating this strategy into school policies and pastoral care programs.

Where would Chris like to be when he has finished his course?
"I enjoy applications development and would initially like to work as a business analyst on a project team. However, I'm also interested the more technical aspects of how systems are designed and understand that this is fundamental to developing IT systems. Eventually I hope to move towards managing projects and into senior IT management for a large corporation."