How Kaleesha’s drive to challenge herself is preparing her for a career in pharmacy.
23-year-old Mossman local, Kaleesha Savage likes scary movies. The scarier the better.
“They were a great distraction from studying too much,” says Kaleesha who has just competed her final year of a Bachelor of Pharmacy at University of Queensland (UQ).
“It was getting to the point where I was stressed out thinking I wasn’t studying enough, even though I was studying all day and night.
“Having those breaks is important. I’ve learnt balance. And that balance doesn’t look the same every day. Some days I’m studying hard. Others, I take a break and scare myself!”
A new challenge
While Kaleesha has just completed her Cape York Leaders Program (CYLP) tertiary scholarship, her CYLP journey began in Year 11 with a secondary scholarship to St Peters Lutheran College in Brisbane. It was here where she was challenged to meet a higher standard.
“In Mossman, I was getting straight As. At St Peters, I went down to Cs and had to build myself back up,” she says. “With boarding school, we had more structure with an hour to two hours of study every night, which helped.
“All the CYLP events helped too. It’s a different feeling being around mob, I think. Catching up with each other made it easier to be away from home and definitely helped with the homesickness.”
Kaleesha also enjoyed heading back home during the school holidays.
“It’s always good to come back and see family and have a holiday. You live really close to other people, all the time in Brisbane. So it’s good to have that space again. Mossman is a great place to come back and just relax.”
Finding her passion
Kaleesha’s family moved all over Queensland as she grew up, including remote communities. It was here the seed to help others was planted.
“I’ve lived in Bamaga and Weipa – as remote as you can get,” she says. “It was a different experience seeing how little people have and how difficult is to live up there. They are really restricted in remote communities. Being around that throughout my life made me want to help people in some way.
“But I was very lost for the first six months of Year 12,” she says. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I did a placement in Mossman Hospital for nursing, but it wasn’t for me. I looked into dentistry, but that bored me.”
It wasn’t until a Year 12 science camp at UQ that Kaleesha started to find a direction for her passion.
“At the camp, they talked about pharmacy and its mix of chemistry and biology. Two subjects that I enjoyed in high school. So I was like ‘I’ll try this and see where it goes’.”
Navigating university
Kaleesha draws strength and inspiration from her rich cultural heritage. She credits her willingness to give anything a go to her parents – her mum, a Waanyi woman from Normanton and her dad, a Torres Strait Islander man from Darnley Island.
“My mum’s a teacher. She went to university and studied education. So that was an inspiration,” Kaleesha says. “My dad’s done a lot of different jobs. He’s inspired me in the way that everything he’s gone into, he’s found a way to be really good at it. So I’m always trying to upskill and learn something new.”
Kaleesha was accepted to UQ and spent her first year at university getting used to a new way of learning and enjoying the extra freedom.
“From my second year, I knew I had to knuckle down and get serious,” she says. “Once I started to get into it more, I started to enjoy it more. I’m learning every day. My mindset has definitely changed.
“I find it all really interesting. The knowledge of how things work in the body and how they use medications. It’s hard but I’m enjoying it.”
Kaleesha is also getting a taste of what careers her degree might hold.
“I’m working as a student pharmacist one to two days a week. It’s given me a real grasp of what I could be doing. The door is open. When I have this degree it can get me into other things as well.”
Next steps
Kaleesha is taking the lessons she has learnt so far and hopes to inspire CYLP secondary students to give university a go.
‘Uni isn’t for everyone. There’s no sugarcoating that. But a lot of people I know just went back to community after school. Some might be scared of trying new things or scared to fail, but just trying things is the best way to move forward into something you will enjoy.”
For Kaleesha, that ‘new thing’ may be using her new skills to help those living in remote communities understand that their health doesn’t have to be scary, like the movies she enjoys so much.
“I’d like to get into health work with Indigenous communities or maybe join an organisation that helps with Indigenous health,” she says. “Being around mob is a good feeling. Being able to help them is even better.”
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