Name: John Edwards 

Degree: Master of Teaching (Secondary) 

How have you found your degree so far? 

It’s been pretty difficult to keep up with the workload so far. Because this is more of a condensed one-and-a-half-year course, it’s very demanding in terms of the amount of information you need to process learn and cover. But I find what’s being learned is incredibly useful, and I can see exactly how it would apply to me as a teacher. I completed a Bachelor of Music, which is the area I want to teach, and now I’m learning the proper ways to go about teaching. when I was doing my undergraduate degree, it was more centred around performing well in a band and being able to market yourself as a musician. It didn’t touch on many areas of theoretical knowledge, which is critical for being able to teach in a classroom, like being able to analyse a piece of music. So, it’s definitely been beneficial so far. 

What work relevant experience have you engaged in? 

I really love and enjoy working as a tutor with the Smith Family. What I do for them at Learning Club is helping children on a learning journey of whatever they want to do. If they want to work on spelling, you can help them with spelling, if they want to work on maths, you can help them with maths. Volunteering there has helped me develop my confidence working with children and young people. I’ve always loved working alongside children, helping them with learning opportunities, and helping them progress in a meaningful way. It has been so nice, and I really look forward to continuing working with the Smith Family at Learning Club.  

John with his band Moodwatch 

What musical practice do you enjoy? 

I’ve loved performing with my band Moodwatch. As a saxophonist, it’s helped me grow a lot in terms of oral and improvisation skills. Being able to hear a tune and play it on my instrument is something that’s taken many years of practice for me to do. Moodwatch has helped a lot with gaining all these skills. It’s helped me grow a lot as a musician, and it’s also been so much fun on-stage doing sax solos. It’s something I’ve wanted to do even from an early age. There was one moment at a recent gig, we were playing and having so much fun that I left the stage and did a sax solo on the dance floor. I thought that was really fun. 

I’ve also been involved with the UON Musos club. I really like Musos as it’s helped me a lot with coming out of my shell and developing performance confidence vocally. Vocal performance is something I’ve never really tried much before, and it’s been an amazing outlet for me to go and perform in the Musos musicals. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and it’s been such a fun experience. I’m also the secretary, and it’s been great to help people connect with the club. Just being a part of the process and a team of musicians trying to develop the club moving forward has been amazing too.  

You’re from Tasmania, are you hoping to stay in Newcastle when you finish your studies? 

I’m hoping to stay around Newcastle. Even though I’m from Tasmania, I’ve lived in Newcastle for a few years now, and it’s become a second home to me. I’m hoping to find work locally, I think there’s a lot of people who would want me to stick around. If I can’t stay in Newcastle, I’d be willing to move to Sydney. That way I can at least visit Newcastle frequently. Newcastle reminds me a lot of home in Launceston. I’ve always thought of Newcastle as essentially Launceston, but a lot more stretched out and developed. A highlight has definitely been the transport system, since we don’t have stuff like trains in Launceston. Having access to that extra form of transport to get to other areas of Newcastle has been a bit of a highlight, since growing up I never got to use trains.  

What advice do you have for university students? 

For me, the most important part of doing a degree is pacing yourself. It’s easier said than done though, people always say take breaks here take breaks there, but it’s really not that easy. When you have three assessments due within a week, you can’t really do stuff like that. That’s why it’s important to strategically think about when you can take a day off and when you can relax. Otherwise, you just get burnt out. My advice is to make sure you can think about where you can take breaks, just as much as you think about when you need to study. If you just have the attitude of needing to get stuff done all the time and working 9am to 9pm, you’re going to feel horrible at the end of that. You need to learn how to pace yourself for the long-term. 

John at the UON Musos O-Week stall