Taking steps outside her comfort zone and following her passion for people has led Claudia Kevin (Class of 2014) on a diverse career journey. In recent times she has found herself working at the National Indigenous Australians Agency developing international policy relating to Indigenous peoples for the Australian Government.
Time at Caulfield
Claudia’s greatest lesson from her time at Caulfield is the importance of making the most of the opportunities that you are given. After finishing school, Claudia took a gap year which gave her time to experience a wide variety of different industries and meet many impactful people along the way.
Upon returning to Australia, Claudia decided to leave the Melbourne bubble behind and move interstate where she became friends with people from all over the country who had completely different experiences and backgrounds to her.
Gender and Inequality
At university, Claudia decided to nurture her passion around issues of gender and inequality. This led her to study a Bachelor of Arts at the Australian National University, double majoring in gender studies and human rights. Through this Claudia “gained a vocabulary to express the issues with inequalities that I had experienced or had witnessed other people experiencing.” This gave her the scope and awareness to become the Women’s Officer at her residential college, making her the first point of contact for issues of sexual assault
“Seeing the complete scope of that issue naturally led me to activism, which led to my work in prevention of violence against women.”
Indigenous Australians
Claudia worked briefly as an executive assistant for the Minister for Women before getting her role at the National Indigenous Australians Agency. She is heavily involved in the drafting of Australian statements for the United Nations on Indigenous Issues, as well as writing briefs for the Minister for Indigenous Australians on a range of issues that are relevant to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on the international stage.
Working towards positive change
Despite her love for her chosen career path, Claudia still looks forward to her personal growth the most.
“Regardless of what industry you’re in – learning about how you work, what you’re good at, what you don’t like and how you perform under pressure” is one of the greatest things about being in the workforce according to Claudia.
As a public servant, Claudia finds the most rewarding part of what she does is seeing the clear and tangible impact that she has. The outcomes from the policies that she develops and being able to see it evolve from concept to actually changing people’s lives is one of many reasons why she still sees herself working towards positive change in the future. On top of this, Claudia hopes to continue further study, embrace her “absolute nerd” and explore more of the public policy sphere to find what else interests her.
Learning to adult
To many it would seem that Claudia has it all figured out, but she stresses that that is certainly not the case. Like so many others, Claudia finds being an adult hard. Realising that no one has it all figured out is what surprised Claudia the most about post high school life. Everyone takes their own journey in their own unique and equally important way. Thinking back to her time at Caulfield, the greatest thing that she learnt was the importance of making the most of the opportunities that you are given. To the current year 12 students and young alumni, Claudia had an inspiring message:
“Be bold and be brave. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box [because] there are so many things you can study and careers that you can pursue that you’ve never even heard of yet and that you’ll only find out if you are willing to try something completely different”.
Claudia’s story and future plans are a great example that following your passion should always be a priority.
This profile was written by a team of young Grammarians as part of our inaugural Young Alumni Tell Their Stories Week – a week of content (including a social media takeover) by young alumni for young alumni. This initiative forms part of our broader Young Alumni Ambassador Program (YAAP).
Feature image by Elyssa Fahndrich on Unsplash.
