Student Profile

Marie Hobson

Library Officer, ABC
Bachelor of Arts (Languages and Intercultural Education) – Japanese, and Bachelor of Arts (Librarianship and Corporate Information Management)

I came to Curtin because it allowed me to study the two streams I wanted – Japanese as well as library studies – concurrently in a double degree.

Curtin is a melting pot of different cultures and therefore a great place to meet people from all walks of life. I really enjoyed my time there and made some great friends. The lecturers were really knowledgeable and often experts in their field on an international level. There were many great lecturers but Dr Maggie Exon stood out for her passion and depth of knowledge in the librarianship field, while Dr Yuko Asano-Cavanagh was a fantastic Japanese teacher who was always very approachable, knowledgeable and made lessons fun.

In 2006 through my Japanese studies, I won a scholarship to travel to Japan for a week with 19 other WA students, returning to Perth via Darwin on a luxury cruise ship for 2 weeks with 500 Japanese students.

Two months after graduating I was lucky enough to gain employment at the ABC, where I had always wanted to work. My role as a library officer at the ABC involves finding vision for news and other programs, cataloguing news and file vision, selecting vision for retention as stock footage, and archival duties.

I would not have been eligible to apply for the job without my librarianship degree. I think the addition of a second degree is very important though for graduate librarians in seeking employment as it gives you depth of knowledge in a chosen field.

I recommend combining studies in librarianship with another degree such as languages, as it makes your time at university a lot more interesting and gives you a competitive edge when applying for jobs from either field of study.