Following the Dream
By Seth Robinson
Cameron McBroom left his home in Kalgoorlie to explore the wider world. Eventually, his travels brought him to Melbourne, a place that offered him the opportunity to study, a career, and a home away from home.
“I moved to Melbourne from Kalgoorlie in 2015. Between high school and university I did a fair bit of travelling, to North and South America, and I lived in Europe for about a year. I also went on exchange in 2016 to Sweden. That was a lot of fun, and it gave me insight into a society that is very progressive. I made lots of friends and ended up hanging out at parties where I was the only one who didn’t speak Swedish, now I can speak the language and can comfortably get through a conversation.”
When it came to choosing where he wanted to study, Cameron’s experience abroad played a major part. He wanted somewhere that was “Europeanesque”, and would open up international opportunities, like his exchange in Sweden.
“I wanted a metropolitan feel, a bit of culture, a bit of community, and the arts. I very much gravitate to those things now. Melbourne is sort of a hub for all the above, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s one of the world’s most liveable cities. I wanted to study at the University, partly because of the prestige, but also because once you’ve been accepted into Australia’s number one university, you know you can do pretty much anything.”
As well as his studies in the Bachelor of Commerce, and enrolling in subjects like the Global Management Consulting Program (which he completed in Singapore), Cameron became involved with Murrup Barak, and the university’s Indigenous community.
“Being Wongai Yamatji myself, I made lots of connections here through the Indigenous centre, and I developed a kind of family here in Melbourne. I ended up living with a couple of other Indigenous students that I was studying with here at the university, one that I’m living with at the moment also works in consultancy, so we can bounce ideas off each other which is good,” he says. “Now that I’ve graduated I’m still very much involved with Murrup Barak. We actually have some students visiting from Kalgoorlie next month as part of the Follow the Dream program, so I’ll be speaking to them and showing them around a bit.”
Since graduating, Cameron has gone on to work as a Consultant with Nous Group, focusing on strategy, organisational performance and data analytics.
“I recently developed a tool for a client in New South Wales that looks at job ads in Australia, and compares occupations based on the skills that are required. It groups roles together, so people can identify jobs that might be suited for them, what other occupations they can transition into based on their skills, or even where you might need to retrain for a new role. Then it shows the job growth or decline for each occupation over the last four years as well as salary ranges. It’s very interesting, because it’s something that has never been done before. I surprised myself building something like that.”