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Max Henshaw
You leave school and you don’t really know necessarily what you want to do. But I’m so grateful for the flexibility of ANU, the double degree and the College because I have finally found where I should be. I feel inspired, which I think is what you want to feel when you’re at university.
Max studied in different areas of the university before settling on an Arts Law double degree. He’s now in his fourth year.
My friends told me I was the kind of guy who loved researching and writing essays and thinking about ideas. So I shifted to Arts Law and that’s what I’ll finish doing. Traditionally Arts Law is five years but I think it will take me six.
I chose a double degree because I think being at university’s a unique period in your life. Whilst it’s good to focus and hone in to an extent, it’s also good to expose yourself to a variety of subjects and areas and experiences. I think a double degree gives you that.
Arts has been fantastic because I get a whole bunch of inspiration from it. The kinds of courses you can do are genuinely mind-opening. Earlier this year I was doing an international relations course which traced the general arc of international relations history and theories. It really demonstrated how history was being defined and changed by people’s ideas being contest, exchanged and explored.
Given my involvement in a leadership program in Malawi, I really wanted to investigate development more closely, so did the course development and change which I absolutely loved. It allowed you to actually take interest and coursework and apply it in practical ways. I got to do a policy paper on gender inequality and its impact on HIV/AIDS in Malawi.
The lecturer of that course was very engaged, experienced and passionate. Those things I don’t think you can fake and she really did care. Even my tutor, who is doing his PhD at ANU on development generally, every class he forced us to think and work collaboratively and be critical.
My major is politics and my minor is economics. I’m loving politics because I think it’s really important to have your eyes opened on such an area and ANU does a fantastic job at helping with that.
For a while I was doing Commerce and Law, which is why I am making economics a minor. I used my first couple of years to explore and work out what I was doing. Now I feel very firmly set in what I’m doing. I’ve been loving the Arts degree this year.
Max has since graduated from the university.
