I encourage you to personally tour the school and meet the educators and students, form your own opinion and leave a comment here.
Best of luck with your search for the perfect school!
PODCAST EPISODE 10
Daniel Cash speaks about Melbourne Grammar’s inclusive all boys culture
February 25 2025
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
Daniel is already an an accomplished writer and law student after graduating Melbourne Grammar’s as school captain in 2023. In this podcast we chat about his experience growing up at Melbourne Grammar. We cover the inclusive and nuturing culture at Melbourne Grammar, growing up in a wealthy school and how his school experience has set him up for university and life beyond.
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💡 Did you know Melbourne Grammar School is in the top 100 Melbourne schools? See our top 100 schools article
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Transcript
Crystal: Hi parents! Welcome to the first Melbourne Schools Podcast for 2025. To kick off 2025, I have a very special guest joining me – Daniel Cash. Daniel is a recent high school graduate, but he’s already making waves as a passionate advocate, an opinionated writer, and an articulate Gen Z spokesperson.
Daniel graduated as Melbourne Grammar School captain in 2023. I first came across him when I read his powerful opinion piece in The Age called “I’m Melbourne Grammar School captain and I’m gay. The Presbyterian Church would have me sacked.” Needless to say, it left a big impact on me. Since then, I’ve made it a point to read Daniel’s articles in The Age as they’re so thoughtful and well-written. If you’re interested, you can look him up. I’m super excited to chat with him today. Hello Daniel!
Daniel: Good day Crystal. Thank you so much for having me. I’m very, very happy to be here.
Crystal: Oh no, thank you for coming on. I know you’re a busy person, so thanks for making the time.
Daniel: Not at all.
Crystal: So before we chat about Melbourne Grammar, I’d love to know what you’re doing these days with your life.
Daniel: Awesome. So I’m in my second year of university. I’m up at the ANU in Canberra, studying a double degree of Law and International Relations, which is really enjoyable. ANU has actually been in the headlines quite a bit lately because it’s going through tough times financially. That’s not something I counted on when I first made my decision. It seems you can’t really tell too much from a student perspective, so I’m enjoying that.
I’m working for a communications company called Encore as an associate, which is really fascinating. And in exciting news, as you’ve mentioned, I’ve been writing for newspapers including The Age and Sydney Morning Herald.
Crystal: You’re a regular contributor to The Age I see.
Daniel: Yes, which is such a great opportunity. That’s amazing.
Crystal: Thank you.
Daniel: It’s been so thrilling. And after that, this year, through Encore we’re launching a podcast called “Gen Z Explained,” pitched at an audience of parents, teachers, and managers of Gen Z, endeavoring to explain everything there is to know about my anxious, overstimulated, lazy generation. Each episode, I and my boss who’s 30 (so she’s a millennial), Jesse Woo, go over a topic whether it be Gen Z in the workplace or what it’s like growing up with social media. I’m really excited for the first three episodes of that to come out soon.
Crystal: Wow, gosh! You’re doing everything – writing, podcasting, studying, working. Gosh, where do you find the time?
Daniel: Allegedly studying! Yeah, I know how it is at university.
Crystal: Yeah, that sounds amazing. So, speaking of Melbourne Grammar, you’ve been graduated for two years now, is that right?
Daniel: Yes.
Crystal: How long were you at Melbourne Grammar for?
Daniel: All the way through, so from prep.
Crystal: Oh wow, so from prep to year 12?
Daniel: Yes.
Crystal: Amazing. So the primary school is called Grimwade, that’s right?
Daniel: That’s coed, and then all boys from 7 to 12.
Crystal: And that’s a different campus then?
Daniel: Yes.
Crystal: Do you know how your parents chose Melbourne Grammar?
Daniel: We lived close by.
Crystal: Right, and is that to add to their work commutes?
Daniel: Right.
Crystal: Do you have siblings at the school as well, or no?
Daniel: I have two older sisters, so they went through Grimwade. That’s why we’d actually then moved somewhere else by the time I was entering, so our original reason was proximity.
Crystal: Right, we were having such a great time there.
Daniel: Yes.
Crystal: Where did your sisters end up going?
Daniel: To Melbourne Girls’ Grammar.
Crystal: Oh, right. So that’s kind of the sister school of Melbourne Grammar.
Daniel: Yes.
Crystal: So how did you find your time there? Like, we hear, I think as parents, we hear a lot about boy schools and what they’re like, and single-sex education. What was your experience like going from a primary school that was coed to a boys-only environment?
Daniel: I found it, and I look back at my time with almost continued shock that it was this great, with so much fun. Because I know school isn’t always easy for people – ups and downs – but I thought it was a remarkably positive place where everyone could thrive. I think people were genuinely valued whether they were sporty or academic or into drama, or all three of that, or none of that. They were valued.
I think it was a very sensitive environment. The staff really encouraged that, and then in the cohort of students, there was a softness or a sort of receptiveness to people being different. Going from a co-ed environment up to year six, then into all boys from year seven onwards wasn’t too big a leap. I think because there was this sort of sensitivity and emotional intelligence that I found all the way through.
Crystal: Yeah.
Daniel: And I think maybe I just had a good cohort, who knows. And then from year seven onwards, Melbourne Girls’ Grammar is just around the corner, and so there are sometimes activities that are done together.
Crystal: Yeah, I wonder, do you think it was just like luck? Do you think your cohort, or do you think the teachers had that sort of culture as well of being emotionally intelligent and sensitive? How do you think that gets created in a culture?
Daniel: I think it’s definitely, you know, a system’s only as good as the people that are in it. So I can only speak to my cohort, but I think the staff enacted structures that really brought that out in the students. So in senior school, for example, there are various committees – the science committee or the bushwalking society who plan their own bushwalks. These are things that go on even though students will leave the school; these structures remain in place to encourage kids to have different passions and ensure that there’s not just one mold that fits in. It’s emphasized at the school, so I think it’s probably also institutional.
Crystal: So are they clubs that you just mentioned?
Daniel: Yeah, so they call them committees, and students run them, but basically clubs, yes.
Crystal: Okay, so there were a lot of different kinds of clubs and extracurriculars.
Daniel: Yes.
Crystal: That’s interesting, because I get the impression that Melbourne Grammar is quite an academic school. If I remember correctly, you’ve got to sit an exam to get in, is that right?
Daniel: I think because I was through from prep, but I think if you’re entering at year seven you do, and same for year nine.
Crystal: So once you’re in there, do you feel like the culture is still quite academic, or what would be the predominant culture? I know some schools are very academic or have a very sporty culture – what would you say Melbourne Grammar is?
Daniel: I think there are the hallmarks of an academic school. For example, from maybe second semester in year eight or maybe year nine, we’re already doing exams so that we can come to terms with the process of revision and then sitting an exam. So there are all these things that the school does that are very academic that prepare us so well, and we’re very fortunate for that.
Equally, I think it was an environment, especially in earlier years, where learning was really fun and something that was taught in a sort of jovial way. I think, you know, when you give a dog medicine, you put peanut butter over the pill.
Crystal: So they sugar-coated the learning?
Daniel: Without taking anything away from the learning.
Crystal: Oh, okay. That’s a good way to describe it.
Daniel: Yes.
Crystal: Well, I guess that’s a good thing, isn’t it? To make it fun and enjoyable. I mean, learning should be.
Daniel: I look back on the primary school, for example, and I really enjoyed it. I was extended where I needed to be and all this sort of stuff. And then I realized that was very academic, but at the time it didn’t feel like it.
Crystal: It just didn’t feel too much.
Daniel: Yes.
Crystal: That’s interesting. I mean, they must be doing something right because I know that Melbourne Grammar does really well academically in terms of VCE. There’s no IB at the school, is there? It’s just VCE?
Daniel: Yes. I think, sorry to interrupt, the teaching staff have naturally and obviously a massive role there. Coming to university, it cast into relief just how lucky I was to go to the school. At university, your professors or lecturers don’t know your name, and you don’t have the relational and quite close environments that I had at Melbourne Grammar. I realized, wow, my teachers were so conscientious, so caring, they knew so much about you as a person and as a student. I think the role they had can’t be overstated.
Crystal: Do you think that has put you at a disadvantage at uni, though? To be used to that sort of attention? Some people say that it’s like being spoonfed in private school, and then sometimes people go into a bit of shock when they get to uni and realize, “Oh gosh, the lecturer doesn’t even know who I am.” Do you think that puts you at a disadvantage?
Daniel: Not really, because I think that while we had this attention and great care from teachers, it wasn’t being spoonfed. It was rather being taught, nurtured, and given the reign to an active sort of way of living and way of learning.
So when I came out of the Melbourne Grammar system, I was vested with a learning style that was super active where I could read in an analytical and selective way when someone was lecturing at uni, for example, and pick up on the right things, where I could think for myself. I was a focused student, so I think I got that especially from school – the complete opposite of spoon feeding.
I think it made me really well placed for uni, which is a much more independent, sink-or-swim type of environment. The only negative would be that I just came from this wonderful environment where you could email someone on a Sunday and they’d reply, which is not the case for uni. But that’s not to the school’s detriment.
Crystal: I hear this argument a lot, and I’m in two minds about it because I can see where people are coming from. If you come from a very nurturing environment, you might get a bit of a shock when you get tossed into the real world. But I think it is good that you do get a good foundation to start with when you are young, and you get taught and nurtured well. I think there is something to be said about that as well.
So with the school, do you think that there’s a sporty culture as well?
Daniel: Yes, and I think it ties to my point earlier. I’ll give you an example: in our year 12, we reintroduced the house cup, which was a competition that used to exist between the various houses in the school. The competitions that contributed to the house cup were sporting competitions like athletics, but also the yearly theater sports competition, or a writing competition, music competition, that sort of thing. So it was a very balanced overall scoreboard of various aspects of school life contributing to the overall house win.
I think that’s a good way of introducing the fact that the school is really sporty, has a great sports program that I loved throughout my time there, but not in an exclusive way that crowds out other aspects of school life.
I’m conscious that schools like Melbourne Grammar in the past have been very “rah rah” sporty. There’s the old Barry Humphries who was Dame Edna – he went to grammar and did not have the best time because he wasn’t a very sporty kid. But equally, I’ve spoken to old students who weren’t sporty, and they loved it. These days, I think it’s got an emphasis on sport without outshining anything else.
Crystal: So you don’t have to be a very sporty kid to excel at Melbourne Grammar, would you say?
Daniel: No way. All throughout, I think, you know, in the Wednesday assembly, the captain of the football team might get up and talk about their victory on the weekend, and he will get the exact same volume and length of applause that the head of the symphony orchestra will get when he comes and talks about their tour they did recently or spring performance.
I remember always thinking that’s really wonderful, and it’s not something that a school can direct – it’s the students who are showing their appreciation, and it’s quite evenly spread.
Crystal: Were you a sporty kid?
Daniel: I enjoyed my sport. I really like swimming, water polo. I played football, though I don’t think I got close to the ball very often. So yes, I engaged quite a bit with the sport.
Crystal: I think a lot of parents of boys who are less sporty do worry in that environment, like putting them in a boy’s school. I know that some people might perceive it as a very masculine environment with toxic masculinity. People do worry about that, but it doesn’t sound like it from what you described.
Daniel: I thought it was really… I understand I’m sounding like a walking advertisement, but I think I would corroborate this with my friends’ and peers’ experiences. I think there was this wonderful expression of masculinity at the school which was, in a very boyish way, super accepting. You know, that kid isn’t good at cricket, and he might be gay – people don’t really care. They like them for who they are. I think it’s very Australian and very meritocratic in that way. I might not like that kid, but it’s because he’s annoying me in other ways, if you understand what I’m saying.
Crystal: Well, I think that could put a lot of parents at ease because I see that question come up a lot about all-boy schools and the culture there, similar with all-girl schools – is it a detrimental environment as well?
I think sport is a great way to make friends, and especially among young boys, it’s an easy way to find respect and admiration among your peers. But from your experience, equally, if you’re musical or theatrical or really good at French or something, there’s a crowd that admires that and there’s broad respect among students.
Daniel: Maybe it comes from humility, and I don’t know how that is taught. It might be the fact that a kid who’s good at athletics might think, “That’s great that I’m good at athletics, but gosh, I really admire the kid who’s great on the saxophone because I couldn’t even begin to approach that.”
Crystal: It sounds like there’s that kind of respect for differences in people.
Daniel: Yes.
Crystal: That sounds pretty amazing. With the other thing that parents worry about with schools like Melbourne Grammar – because I think everybody knows that it’s not a cheap place to go – is there a sense of elitism, especially with kids who get scholarships into the school and aren’t particularly wealthy? Do you think there’s a bit of a divide that happens? Would you even know that the kids are on scholarships?
Daniel: I never really knew who was on a scholarship or not. In year seven, there’s a big intake going to the new campus of kids from Grimwade who had been at the school from prep, and then kids who had come from other schools. For the kids who came from Grimwade, that was their first time going to school with people who had often been at a public school for their primary education, so it’s two different environments feeding in.
I didn’t really notice elitism because I think there are great structural elements in place. Service learning was a big emphasis at the school through the houses or through volunteering or through committees, where you could work in charities or services. Maybe every third Wednesday you go to Carlton because the school has a partnership with a breakfast service.
Crystal: So is that part of the school system? Is that like a club or something like that?
Daniel: Yes, so the houses each have their own services that they do. It’s called service learning that the students can be involved in. Then there was a committee I was involved with called the Values Committee where you can do all sorts of service work, whether it be three times a term. Then there was a yearly trip to Vietnam which the students would fundraise for by doing sausage sizzles at school, and they would help build part of a new school or similar projects.
I think there was a real emphasis on acknowledging that there’s no getting around the fact that it’s the height of good fortune to go to this school, but there was a quite persistent and constant consciousness that, wow, we have this amazing opportunity. There are things we should be doing to keep a perspective on the fact that we’re so lucky to go here and give back and actually be part of the community at large.
I remember one of the things we spoke about was that service isn’t a transactional thing but a relational thing. From engaging in service learning, it’s not just the people we’re helping or working with that are getting something out of it – it’s us as well, and often maybe us more so because we’re learning and hearing from backgrounds that we haven’t been exposed to.
I wasn’t on a scholarship; I was there from prep, so I can’t speak to how it would feel to come from a different background. I thought the school did a good job of keeping that in check, but there are lots of people there who come from backgrounds with lots and lots of money, so there’s only so much a school can do.
I especially remember that at primary school because when you’re growing up and you’re six, and you come to be picked up and all the cars are fancy cars, you think that’s normal.
Crystal: And I remember thinking, “God, what’s wrong with our car if it’s not a Porsche?”
Daniel: It’s a bit of a distorted view, I think. I thought we must be inferior, but you grow up and realize that’s not the case. I think the school does a very good job and all it can do as a school to ameliorate that.
Crystal: That’s interesting. I also came from a fancy school – my parents put me into a fancy school when I was a kid. Having no perspective on the outside world, I also thought that was normal, but because I thought that was normal, I didn’t think anything of it.
Daniel: That’s interesting, isn’t it?
Crystal: And now I look back and go, “Oh, my friend was really wealthy, but I didn’t realize it at the time, and I didn’t care.” Like, nobody cared.
Daniel: I think I was also protected from it because, for my family, it was quite a sacrifice to send me to the school, and my parents are very unpretentious people who scoff at any sort of pretension. So I was always aware of that through them, and we would poke fun at things.
Crystal: It’s part of your upbringing as well, I think. Is it a big school actually? I don’t know how big it is. Do you know how many students there are?
Daniel: I think there would be maybe as a guess, maybe a thousand in total across the campuses. The senior school is years 9 to 12, and I think there are about 200 kids a year, so that’s 800. Maybe it’s more like 1,500 then, and then the middle school is years 7 and 8, and that’s probably 170 per year.
Crystal: So it’s actually quite large.
Daniel: Yes, pretty large, but because it’s in three sections, it doesn’t feel too big.
Crystal: Oh, so they’re actually on different campuses?
Daniel: The years 7 to 12 are on the same campus, but there’s an oval in between, so they do feel that they’re separated.
Crystal: You were talking about that program where the kids go to Vietnam. Are there any other special extracurricular programs? I know some schools have an off-site year nine program and that sort of thing. Does Melbourne Grammar do anything like that?
Daniel: So there are trips that happen. I think there’s a cricket trip, and there’s a Latin or classics trip. Again, I don’t really know how these things work because a lot of it for me was during COVID, so they didn’t happen. But in year 10, there’s the sort of flagship outdoor education program called “Beyond the Gates,” which is usually a 3-week camping trip including a 48-hour period where you’re on your own – solo camping. For me, that was a 24-hour period because of COVID modifications, and it’s this time when, for lots of students, they have epiphanies and revelations. I just got very bored and ate all my food too early.
Crystal: I can relate!
Daniel: There are other camps, but that’s the main one.
Crystal: So that’s a year 10 thing. Can you talk a bit about the leadership there? What did you think? Obviously, you got elected as the school captain, so I think that says something about the leadership as well, but can you talk about the school principal? Did you have much to do with him as school captain?
Daniel: Yes, so the principal is Philip Grutzner. He actually went to the school – he’s the first principal to have been to the school, and it really shows in his affection, and he’s very compassionate about the school. The deputy principal and the head of the senior school is Ben Heisch, and then there is the head of students, Jeff Guggenheimer. They’re the three sort of leaders who I liaised with most often.
Then there are also others who are on the executive, like the head of Learning and Development, and then I think there’s a school board which is more operational. I didn’t have a ton to do with them.
Those three I mentioned were the ones that the vice captains and I worked with the most, and pretty closely. We’d have a meeting every week, and those three often would speak to the students every week at an assembly, so they’re very much in the forefront.
They had different roles. Mr. Guggenheimer, who was the head of students, was very pastoral. He’d help and have oversight over lots of events and organizing events. Mr. Heisch, who was the head of senior school, had quite a wide remit. And then Mr. Grutzner, the principal, had a similar role to Mr. Heisch but also had other campuses to think about.
I was always amazed by how good a barometer they had for the students and the staff. Often, because I was quite energetic and often coming up with ideas, the poor guys always had to be saying no to me because this would be too expensive, or this would be a health and safety risk. But they managed to do that while staying open-minded and saying what they could do – remarkable leeway for student leadership.
In my year, we came up with an idea with the house captains and the vice captains to do the Big Freeze, which is an AFL event. I don’t know if you know, but every year in the AFL, there’s a Big Freeze where they have an inflatable slide that they get celebrities to go down, and then they land in a bucket of ice water. They do it to raise money for motor neuron disease.
Crystal: Yes, yes. I think Neale Daniher started it. I do know a little bit about that.
Daniel: So we did our own with a cool inflatable slide and got teachers to go down, and we raised money for MND that way. That was our idea, and it would have been a headache for them to make sure no one fell off the slide and got hypothermia, but they were really up for stuff like that. I thought that was really fantastic.
Crystal: I actually think that’s really important that you feel like you have a say in what gets done and how things are done. I mean, because you’re school captain as well, you probably have a little bit more sway than some of the other kids there, but do you think there are leadership opportunities available throughout for people who possibly aren’t as well-spoken and popular?
Daniel: You’re making assumptions! Definitely. I think again, due to the structures, there are different areas where you can be a leader. There were the committees where you can be the head of a committee. There were the houses where you could be the house captain or a house vice captain. And then there were other things – you could be the captain of a sport, whether that be swimming, football, or European handball. Then music had its own structure – there was the captain of the symphony, for example.
So there were lots of different areas to lead, and I really like this about the school – all the year 12s wore a white shirt, and that was supposed to mean that every kid in year 12 is a leader. It used to be in the olden days of the school that the prefects, which are no longer a thing, had white shirts. I think it might have been Jeff Guggenheimer’s idea to say, “Well, let’s have all the year 12s have white shirts because they are themselves the leaders.”
I saw throughout year 12 that kids who maybe didn’t have a position would come up with an idea and feel very comfortable to go pitch it to one of the leaders or through us, and it would eventuate.
Crystal: Why do you think that you were elected as a leader? Was it looks of course, or was there anything else?
Daniel: I don’t know because I think it was a great year level, and there were tons of people who would have done a good job.
Crystal: What sort of values or characteristics do you think they valued in you? Why do you think they picked you as the school captain? There must be some reason.
Daniel: I think I made an effort to engage with the school in a lot of ways. I’m not musical at all – I’m borderline tone deaf – but you’ll find this funny: I found myself conducting the orchestra for one small moment. There’s a postmodern composer called John Cage who has a piece that’s 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. The whole idea is that the audience’s coughs and such become the noise and the music, and it’s self-referential. So they got me to conduct that – I came out in a tie and held my batons up for four minutes.
I think I somehow managed to engage with the school quite widely, which they appreciated. I think the role of the school captain at my school is to help be a conduit between those leaders and the students, so they appreciate someone who can relay messages frankly and filter what needs to be filtered through.
Crystal: I normally wouldn’t bring this up, but because you broadcasted it in your first article in The Age – you are gay as well, and I think that says something about the school that they’re happy to have you as captain. It didn’t matter at all. I know, as your article mentioned, sometimes it does matter in other places, whereas at Melbourne Grammar, a place where people worry about toxic masculinity and elitism, it didn’t matter. I think that says something.
Daniel: I got such a great reception from that article and got lots of messages from people from other schools who said they wouldn’t feel safe or confident to do that. It’s such a testament to the school. The school had, before me, plenty of student leaders who were openly gay, so it wasn’t a big deal. They were very ahead of their time even then, which was really impressive.
You mentioned the term “toxic masculinity” as something that people might be worried about with this school. I often thought that was an unfair assumption because it’s a well-known school, it’s an old school, it’s a private school, so there is that perception. The Herald Sun likes to write about that perception. It’s also known as a conservative school, but being on the inside, I found it remarkably progressive and warm. I think it really just struck the right tone in terms of balancing sensitivity with masculinity.
That article that I wrote really brought that to life. I remember the Age had posted it on their TikTok or something, and I was looking through the comments to see if anyone had said something critical. I saw these people defending me, and they were these year 9, very larrikin sort of ratbag boys from the school. I recognized them from their profiles. They were the caricature of boyishness, and they were calling out whoever this critic was. If people like that are part of the cohort, it must be in a good place. I thought it was wonderful.
Crystal: It was an amazing article. I shared it in the group when it came out. I obviously had no idea who you were, but then I also realized after just having a look at all the articles that you’d written recently that I came across a TikTok that you had made. It left an impression – I was going to share that in the group too. I didn’t know it was you – about ATARs and what people were doing now.
Daniel: That was so cool, thank you. For the viewers and listeners, I helped The Age make a TikTok because I’d written an article around the time of the VCE results. I helped make a TikTok asking people in the CBD in Melbourne what their ATAR was and what they now do for work.
Crystal: That’s such a great idea because I often wondered that too. I was actually taking inspiration from you, and I was going to ask the group – I never did it, but I was going to ask the parents in the group, “What was your ATAR, and what are you doing now?” Because you find that there is no correlation after a while.
Daniel: I don’t know if you had a look through the comments of that video, but it was great. People sort of used it as this place to share their ATAR and where they’ve ended up. In the video, there’s the woman who works at the Supreme Court, and you’d think you’d need a perfect score to do that, but she said she maybe got an 80, which is still a pretty great score. It was good fun.
Crystal: Good on you!
Daniel: It was mortifying because, you know, I had to go and tap people on the shoulder and ask them about their ATAR. I thought if someone asked me, I’d say, “Hell no, I’m not feeling up for it,” but people were very generous and happy to chat.
Crystal: I thought that was really impactful. Back to Melbourne Grammar – was there anything that you didn’t like about the school? Anything that you think they could improve on?
Daniel: I promise you, I’m giving a fair-minded response. Maybe in primary school, and I don’t think this is anything the school can do much about, it was just an environment with lots of people with lots of money. That’s not an accurate reflection of what life is like. Growing up, you do have your perspective a bit twisted, but equally, I think by coming into year seven in the senior school, it sort of evens out. But I don’t think that’s anything the school can do.
Crystal: No, you had the perfect experience! That’s amazing to hear though, that you had such a great experience. That’s a real testament to the school. A couple more questions: firstly, how do you think your education has helped you so far in life?
Daniel: I was quite humanities-focused. For VCE, I did Classics, Philosophy, Latin, History of Revolutions, English, and English Literature. Amazing that those subjects were on offer. I think it has so far served me so well because, for example, I would never be able to read Shakespeare just on my own, or even Pride and Prejudice or something by Jane Austen.
I remember reading that in the summer holidays before my class on it and thinking, “What is this?” And then I had the absolute pleasure of having that taught to me and explained to me in such a way that my eyes were opened to these parts of literature and art. I can now take that skill set of analyzing a work and apply it the next time I’m reading something. I think it set me up really well, especially with studying law and doing writing – really transferable skills.
The leadership opportunities have been a great way to hone communication and working for a communications firm and doing writing. I think the strength that I’m still trying to work on is articulating a message and helping the perception of a narrative, so what I learned at school is really helpful for that.
And socially, it brought me really great friends who I’m still in contact with and hang out with, and even teachers I’ll catch up with. When I’m back in Melbourne, I’ll come by and visit the school.
Crystal: What do you think you’re going to be doing down the track? Do you think you’ll be a lawyer?
Daniel: Well, definitely not that – that’s too hard work! I don’t know. I’m interested in the media, I’m interested in politics, but I firmly believe that you should probably go and live your life and do something in the real world before involving yourself with either of those fields.
The industry that I’ve started working in, the communications industry, which is sort of media-adjacent, is really interesting as well. So I don’t know, but I think a law degree is a good degree to have – a way to have a lens through which to view the world, and same with international relations. So the jury is out.
Crystal: Sounds like the world is your oyster, Daniel.
Daniel: Well, hopefully there’s a pearl in it!
Crystal: Hopefully! Is there anything that I have missed that you would like to say about your school or anything else?
Daniel: No, I think that’s it.
Crystal: All right, well thank you so much. Thank you very much for your time and spending the time chatting to me. I’ve loved hearing about your experience, and I’ve loved meeting you actually.
Daniel: It’s been lovely. Thank you, Crystal, much appreciated, and thank you for the opportunity to chat with you.
Crystal: No worries. Thank you, Daniel. Have a great day.
Daniel: You too.
Thanks for joining me on this podcast. Remember that the content that you hear on this podcast is of a general nature and should not be used to make any decisions about schools or anything else. If you want to learn more about schools in Melbourne, make sure you visit the website www.melbourneschools.com. You can also join thousands of other parents in our community at Melbourne Schools Discussion Group on Facebook. See you there!
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