About me

Sadhana Goundar
Nov 4 · 2 min read

I was a naive and obedient housewife. I used to work 9–5, come home, cook and clean daily. Slowly I became agitated and felt stuck in one place. I wanted to make a difference in my life and the world around me. I began doing research regarding online studies and I came across the Western Sydney University providing Community Services courses online. I started studying and found happiness, gained self-empowerment and motivation towards life. My qualification gives me a sense of pride, respect, status, voice, self-satisfaction and a new identity as a confident person. By studying this coarse it has given me an opportunity to change my career path to a community services field, where I want to work for the rest of my life. It has rejuvenated me and allowed me to be a self-agent and I can make my own decisions and represent myself. I found a new ability, where I am able to determine, negotiate and represent myself as an individual and be a team player. By studying I have upgraded myself. I am stronger as a person and have managed to gain control of my life. I have gained a lot of knowledge and have improved my awareness and understanding about the world around me, leaving behind the previous incarnation of my identity and evolving into the person I am today.

According to my Indian culture, some families still have the traditional thinking that a good wife should take care of her husband, children, maintain the house, cook everyday while also wash and clean after the household. My focus was on keeping my family happy. In Australia even now, women have no say in many cultures and have to be an obedient wife to live a peaceful life. Women like me feared to be labelled as a bad wife and a bad mother. I made up my mind and decided enough is enough, there will be some people who will judge me as a bad influence but there will be many more who will see me as an inspiration in their life and will give me support and motivation to move forward in life. The other factor that affected me to study was the competition at work with degree holders for promotion and pay increment. In my experience graduates were given first chance for promotion and those who do not hold a degree stay at the same position for years and years. Experience alone is not enough credentials to gain promotion and opportunities as similar to the degree holders. According to DFES, the degree owner earns on average 50 percent more than non-graduates and they also get double the opportunity for job promotion .

Having loosing so many job opportunities my self-confidence and self-esteem was down and once I started studying, I became confident and learnt to communicate well. Learning has led me to work well as a team member and gain inter personal skills. Doing online coarse have given me a great opportunity to balance my family and working life. I can adjust myself according to my requirements and priorities.

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