As a Commonwealth Games gold medal-winning triathlete, Gillian Backhouse believed postgraduate study was something that would have to wait until after her professional sporting career was over.
"As an athlete I spent four to five months overseas each year," she says. "In the early season I would travel to races around Australia and Asia, and for the main part of the season I was based in Europe for several months. In 2018 and 2019 I also spent some time training in Hong Kong."
Despite her successful (and busy) career as an elite athlete, Gillian missed studying. After coming across UNE's flexible online degrees, she began to think that maybe she could in fact, have it all.
"UNE was the obvious choice as they offered the degree I wanted and I could do it all online from anywhere in the world," she said.
"I was also able to plan my degree so that if it all became too much, I could finish early with a graduate certificate. It was far less daunting knowing that if I had to stop early I would still come out with a qualification."
While studying her Master of Environmental Science and Management, Gillian was part of the university's Elite Athlete Program, which is designed to support professional sportspeople and remove the need for them to choose between tertiary education and an athletic career.
"The program afforded me extra flexibility with my study," she says. "I endeavoured to be organised so that I didn't need extensions on assessment that coincided with racing, however it was comforting knowing that option was always there."
After five years of back-to-back assessments and meticulous planning, Gillian has finally marked the end of her time at UNE (for now). With her supervisor Dr Deborah Bower by her side, she recently celebrated the completion of her degree at the Winter Graduation in Armidale, and was named a Vice Chancellor's Scholar for her academic excellence.
