Mitchell Markham celebrated the end of three years of dedicated study when he recently graduated from Charles Sturt University with a Bachelor of Information Technology.

Mitchell’s mum Karen, father Bradford and other family members travelled from Tea Gardens to the university’s campus in Albury to share the big day and help celebrate the young graduate’s achievements.

“Having my family down for the graduation was really good,” Mitchell said,

“I hadn’t seen them for a while, so it was really uplifting and very motivational to have them there.”

Majoring in Network Engineering, Mitchell is planning on entering the workforce in the technical support area before branching out into network infrastructure.

Mitchell told News Of The Area the courses he studied as part of his degree have prepared him well for his future career.

“The project management, system analysis, internal operations and wireless technology courses were really useful,” he said.

“There was also a lot of mathematics involved in it, especially binary calculations, which were extremely difficult.”

Like many University students, Mitchell said one of the biggest challenges of studying was stretching his limited finances.

“Money was definitely tough to manage, I had to stick to a very tight budget,” he said.

“I survived on two-minute noodles for a while, but it was definitely worth it in the end.”

Although living in Albury while completing his degree, Mitchell said he will always consider Tea Gardens home.

By Daniel SAHYOUN