Urban Engagement Program

Benjamin Jackson

Recently, my class completed the Urban Engagement program. It was like nothing I had ever done before. Spending four weeks in the city, what an exciting prospect! For me, Urban Engagement lived up to its high expectation, but not in the way I thought it would. For me, the sense of freedom was amazing, but what I valued most was the independence I gained from the program. But I’ll touch more on this later.

You might ask “What do you do during the program?” Well, it started with a week of exploration. We were assigned groups with the St Columba’s students, and our job on the first day was to visit various landmarks around the city in an Amazing Race. It was a great way to introduce us to the program, as we had to figure out how to use public transport to find our way around the city. Yes, we used Google Maps for absolutely everything, but it was about us finding our way, and still built a lot of independence as we learned our way around. The theme of exploration continued for the first week, as we were given plenty of worksheets that we had to fill out whilst visiting various locations. It may have seemed a bit pointless at the time, but we gained an unfathomable amount of independence over the first week, in terms of using public transport, and knowing where things are in the city.

This brings us to week two, where we were put into groups of four boys (which was a welcome reprieve for most). We were tasked with putting together a presentation on an issue in the city. My group got traffic and public transport. This was also our first taste of freedom, as without the excursions, we had all the choice on what we wanted to do! However, our whole class found out pretty quickly that the time would drain pretty fast, and spending an hour and a half at Melbourne Central may not be the best choice. In terms of my group, we decided to have three people conduct the necessary interviews, whilst I stayed back to do the research. It worked perfectly, and thanks to our time management, it was fairly stress free. My advice for people going in would be to manage your time properly, as you really don’t want to be in the situation when you run out of time.

For the final two weeks, we completed our Passion Projects. How good we thought it would be. Two weeks, and all we had to do was make a five minute video! But as we soon found out, it wasn’t about weeks or days, it was about hours. And fifteen hours goes by pretty quickly as I soon found out. It didn’t take long until I was editing from home, and I felt like nothing had been achieved. We were supposed to finish by Thursday of week four, and on the Tuesday, we had less than two minutes of horrendous quality footage put together. We had all the filming done, but I was on the verge of throwing a chair across the room, especially because half of my group couldn’t do anything due to technical issues. I couldn’t find any appropriate music for our project, which was The Shrine of Remembrance, and I was genuinely concerned it wouldn’t get done. Luckily for us, we had three hours the next day, and it’s remarkable how much work four people can get done without any problems, and by Thursday, we had produced something to be proud of. From these two weeks, I learned a lot about time management and productivity, and I would urge people to properly plan out everything you want to get done, and if you work as hard as you can, you will get so much pride out of it.

So, what has all this taught me? It would be an understatement to say I learnt more than I believed possible from the program. The responsibility is all on you. You have to make your way into and around the city, all on your own. You decide when you do what you need to, when you have lunch, and what work you want to do. It taught me an ungodly amount of independence. If I’m being honest, my greatest achievement was not having McDonald’s by choice, and the only time I had it was when it was my only possible choice unless I wanted to starve. It taught me how to use public transport. It taught me how to navigate. I can say with confidence that if you dropped me anywhere in Melbourne, I could figure out where I am within a minute, and I would know how to get home. It taught me time management, it taught me productivity skills, and it taught me how to behave in an adult environment. Overall, this experience is incredibly valuable for learning life skills, and although I think highly of Santa Monica, I feel that this experience will help me immensely in the future.

Ethan Gissara

During my time at the Urban Engagement program, I had an adventure of emotions throughout the program, from exciting too happy too sad. Urban was split into a few main projects which I will sum up for you. Week one exploration with the Girls which involved us exploring the city and the different building which are hidden with Melbourne. Week two was our first assessment which was the Big Issue, you and your group members would get a designated task and you would have to go out and conduct research and results which you would later present as a group.

During the first two weeks I experience many different parts of Melbourne and personally loved every part from the laneways activities to the Australian music vault to even the metro tunnel HQ. Every part left a different impression on me but overall, it contributes to the culture which we call Melbourne.

Week 3 was interesting as we got to choose our groups and choose the project we wanted to work on, my group worked on the Shrine of Remembrance which brought sadness and reminded me of the sacrifice they made for our country. I had some interesting interactions with people there but one thing they all had in common was they were all coming to visit the Shrine to remember and honour these people who died for our country. I personally found all the artefacts and the items very symbolic of the people and hold memories of the fallen. I thought the Shrine was a wonderful reverent place that you should visit one day.

Throughout week 3 and 4 I had many interesting interactions with members of the public from just a hello to interviewing people as people went about their days. At the start of the program I was a little nervous and confused on which public transport to catch and when going in and around the city, however having your peers around you helping it makes moving around considerably easier, hence the importance of teamwork throughout the program teamwork and organisation will be two of the most important skills you will continue to develop and will use throughout the program and you will gain so much more out of the program if you contribute to the team and are organised. This is an important lesson for life which you will already have plenty of experience due to the program.

Finally Urban Engagement left me with so much more than just teamwork and organisation it left me with a different view on the city and more knowledge on how to get around the city which I didn’t have before this will easily be one of the most memorable experiences of my high school journey and one, I won’t forget.