Facing death often brings with it a moment of clarity.
“When you think you’re going to die, you start to think about what you missed out on. For me, education was it. I was really sorry that I never continued on with my education.”
Sharon Jackson had chosen a predictable path like many others. She finished high school and started work, spent some time travelling overseas, fell in love, got married, and took on a mortgage. “I enjoyed life, tootling along doing what I like. I had been working as a legal secretary for decades,” she says.
“Then I had a really bad car accident. It was very bad. They had to cut me out of the car. I had nearly two years of rehab.” This incident left its mark on Sharon – and not only physically. . Although she was grateful for how accommodating her workplace had been during her recovery, she realised that her injuries might not allow her to work until normal retirement age. “That freaked me out a bit,” she says.
But, with retirement looming, Sharon questioned whether she was too old to start study. “I liked writing stories, and thought if I did an Arts degree I might be able to move into teaching. I thought teaching would be easier to do with my injuries.”
So, Sharon looked into enrolling in a degree. “And then I got cancer.” After many rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, she finally got the all-clear.
“I thought, I should just do it. I sat down one weekend to investigate and discovered the Pathways courses you can do, as it had been so long since I had done my HSC. I enrolled that day. I was so excited.”
Sharon started a Bachelor of Arts full-time, while still working full-time as a para-legal, and decided to pick up some Law units, too. “I just didn’t click with the English units that I thought I would love, but when it came to Law I thought, ‘Oh, this is really for me! I really like this!’. I got an HD in one, and a D in the other.” So, she took a leap of faith and transferred into law. “It just worked for me. I really enjoyed it.”
Sharon also applied to the New England Award at the same time as enrolling. “It pushes you to do things you would normally find uncomfortable - I signed up for things I never would have signed up for previously.”
Like many students, Sharon reached the halfway point of her degree and found herself feeling despondent. Then she got a call to say she had won a $1500 Oorala Scholarship. “It really took me by surprise. I realised all the work I had been putting in wasn’t just being recognised by myself, it was recognised in my uni community, in my Aboriginal community, and it motivated me to keep on going. It was perfect timing.”
Lifetime of learning
It was during the Bachelor of Laws degree that Sharon discovered her love of learning. “It’s opened my mind to so much that I’d missed over the years. I just love having this additional knowledge. It’s become a really important part of my life,” she says. “I wasn’t doing it for anything but my own benefit. I was doing it for me.”
With no firm plan in mind following her graduation, Sharon considered working with Aboriginal Legal Aid, or somewhere in rural NSW that needed the support. “I thought having an older female Aboriginal voice would be valued out there, but when my boss found out I was studying he said, ‘No, you’ll be working here!’ He was absolutely on board and very supportive.” She now works as a solicitor with McDonnell Schroder, in Blacktown, NSW.
A year on from graduating, Sharon realised how much she “missed the learning”. Despite the steep learning curve involved with doing a thesis, Sharon says she’s working away at her Master of Laws and enjoying it.
“My end goal is to try and be an arbitrator or conciliator, something where I’m helping people to resolve their issues.” She says she appreciates the exposure and “much wider knowledge base” that UNE has given her, compared to her work as a paralegal where she felt pigeonholed, working in only one specific area.
Sharon originally began her studies “just to prove to myself that I could do it,” but has since discovered “it’s the joy of learning that really excites me. Everything I learn drives me to learn something else. I’ve only just opened up a whole new world of academia that I’ve got to explore.”
She advises other graduates to “work and volunteer as early as you can. When you actually go and help someone, and make a difference in their life, it’s really worthwhile. That’s my recommendation,” she says.
