Hayden from Melbourne, Studying Masters of Clinical Psychology

Hayden from Melbourne, Studying Masters of Clinical Psychology

There are many different events that NCV sets up for people to get involved in, but there are also many different ways us, as residents, can contribute to the college and involve ourselves in areas that we find passion in.

Hayden's Experience:

Hi my name is Hayden. I’m from Melbourne and I’m studying my Master of Clinical Psychology, currently in my first year of the Master’s program, and working as a provisional psychologist at the internal clinic, and I have set up my external placements to be working at an anxiety clinic and a general mental health unit, and hopefully after that I can make my way to be graduating as a clinical psychologist.

When I was looking for a place to stay in Sydney to study up here, I was really looking for a place on campus, because when I was studying my undergrad, I was at Monash uni and doing it quite long-distance, so it took me a long time to get there… NCV really stood out for me, and I really had my hopes up to get a place here. Particularly because it’s a postgraduate community, I’d be around people that are around my age, doing similar things, that have their goals set out, like-minded people and I felt like I would be able to get along really well with them. I heard a lot of great things about NCV so I was really excited to see if I could get a position here.

After a long-long drive coming up from Melbourne, I was really quite exhausted and really looking forward to settling down and getting myself setup in my room. So when I arrived, I was greeted by the Assistant Dean, who met all my expectations about how I wanted to settle in. He was really warm and welcoming, and made me feel like I could call this place home… And then going on from that, the next few days of O’Week was just about the same with everyone I met. All the Senior Residents were really warm and welcoming and made me feel I could be a part of this community. All the other residents were so friendly, and it was so easy to get along with them, and with all the activities they had on offer, it was a great chance to get to know a lot of people and make a lot of friends.

Here at NCV, we have studios and apartments, and the apartments are filled with about five or six rooms that people share together, and I live in one of those apartments. I get my own room and my own bathroom, but on top of that, I get to share a kitchen and lounge room with five other guys, and to be honest, it’s been a great experience. There’s something about having that availability to come home after a long stressful day at uni and just to be able to say hello to other people and have that social contact, it just feels really nice.

NCV is great in terms of the variety of cooking you can get. In the apartments there’s a kitchen, where you can cook your own meals, but if you’re like me and there’s a lot of stuff going on at uni and you don’t have the most amount of time, you can get yourself onto the meal plan, and that gives you 10 meals throughout the week so you don’t have to cook, and you can just go there and the meals are already prepared for you. On top of that, there’s a lot of other people that go to meal plan, and we sorts huddle together and create our own community there and everyone gets to know each other and it’s amazing how quickly you get to know people over a meal.

There are many different events that NCV sets up for people to get involved in, but there are also many different ways us, as residents, can contribute to the college and involve ourselves in areas that we find passion in. Given my background in mental health, I was chosen to give a lecture, a presentation on tips for managing exam stress, and that was a really great thing to impart my knowledge in ways in which we can maintain mental wellbeing at such a stressful time like exams, and make sure that people could do okay throughout this time and not get super duper stressed with how they’re going to do in those exams.