Why leadership skills matter as much as academic results

Rob: Welcome to the National Virtual Expo. I'm your host for this session, Rob Malicki, coming to you today from Garigal land in Sydney. Welcome to this session on building your leadership skills while you're at university. If you're joining us live, you can ask any questions in the chat -- somewhere on your screen or on your phone, depending on where you are. If you're joining us on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok, make sure you drop your questions in the chat. If you're watching on the replay, you can still ask questions -- we have the Choosing Your Uni Discord details in the session description below. For parents, we have a Facebook community just for you as well, so feel free to ask any questions and we will be answering every single one that comes through.

Rob: I'm super pumped about this session because uni is about so much more than just classes. I believe this session on building your leadership skills is one of the most important when it comes to your career after uni. To that end, I'm joined by an expert in this field, Veronica Wong, currently at the University of Technology Sydney. Veronica, welcome to the National Virtual Expo.

Guest: Thanks for having me, Rob. I'm really excited for the chat.

Rob: I'm super pumped. When most people think about university, they're probably thinking about the academic side of things first and foremost. But it is about so much more than just classes, isn't it?

Guest: 100%. I often look at university as a microcosm of the real world. There's so much that you can learn in that safe space of testing. It's a sandpit, really -- testing your skills, testing the way you make friends. It's a really great way to learn things in a much safer environment than in that big, wide, real world as we sometimes call it.

Rob: I love that. It really is a sandpit, and it is a place where you get to try new things that you might not otherwise have done. So if we're talking about building leadership skills, why are those skills important for somebody going through university in the first place?

Guest: Probably starting off with some of the recent data -- because you can develop skills and explore topics, join the Chocolate Appreciation Society for the fun of it, and still develop skills through that. But on a more practical, career-focused level, the 2026 Australian Association of Graduate Employers Survey indicated that some of the top skills for graduates are collaboration -- you can't do that on your own, you need to learn to work with people -- communication, again you need to learn to talk to people, problem solving, and adaptability. Whilst university classes allow you to develop technical expertise in your professional area, whether that's accounting or civil engineering or whatever it may be, you can't just practise that alone in a bubble. When you go out into the world of work, you need to practise it in a wider context, with other people, with offices in other countries perhaps, with other sectors. These are the skills that employers have recently said are some of the most important.

Guest: One of the other quotes I really love from the report was that employers report high satisfaction with graduates' ability to work in teams, particularly when they have had on-campus collaborative learning experiences. You can get some of these experiences in the classroom through group work, group projects, and small group tutorials. But there's something different about choosing to take yourself out of a subject you have to pass and saying, "I'm interested in Japanese culture -- there's a matcha society or an anime club, maybe I'll try to make friends, pursue that interest, and see if there are ways I can develop my leadership skills. Maybe I'll run for president of that club, and then I'll learn to work in a team, to communicate, to understand what leadership is." Those skills are transferable when you come into the workplace, because out there you're competing with people who've also possibly studied exactly the same subjects you studied. What's going to make you stand out?

Rob: Exactly. You might be an engineer or a chemical engineer and someone might say, "Well, how does the matcha society relate?" But it does. Transferable skills are really important. In a world where everything can be generated in seconds -- images, videos, audio, ideas -- ideas are a commodity. The core skills you need to get ahead are the human skills: collaboration, communication, leadership, adaptability. These are absolutely critical, and I personally believe people need to be honing in on them right now.

Guest: Definitely. I have worked with a lot of students across leadership programmes and student experience programmes, and I do come across many who sometimes think, "Maybe I should develop these extra skills, but I'm shy, I'm quiet, I'm not a leader." The thing is, leadership can be reframed. If you're passionate about something and you basically want to help out in some way and have some degree of influence, you don't need to be the president of a society. You might say, "I don't feel quite confident enough to be president, but you're running a club event -- can I put my hand up and volunteer?" You're going to learn a ton of skills by doing that, and build your confidence at the same time. You'll realise that as you work with a team as a volunteer, you can contribute ideas, you're using your initiative, you're seeing how to communicate, you're learning to listen to other people's perspectives. These are all very important skills.

Co-curricular versus extracurricular: what's the difference?

Guest: I find that when you're in a classroom setting and you're told to work in a group, there are often the pressures of having to do well, having to pass a subject, and there's a different type of mindset pressure that comes from learning these skills there. I'm not saying that's bad -- in fact, it's critically important, because in the workplace you'll have projects with deadlines and you'll have to work with other people. But I think there's something extra freeing about working on these skills in an environment where you've chosen an extracurricular or co-curricular experience that you're interested in, that doesn't have the same academic pressure as a classroom setting.

Rob: Pause there for a second. You mentioned co-curricular and extracurricular -- maybe you could just explain what those are, and then we can dive into some of the amazing opportunities students have on campus.

Guest: Sure. Simply put, co-curricular experiences are ones that coincide or sit alongside some of your academic experiences. A student might be involved in a field trip project that they optionally chose to do as part of a subject, or you could even loosely call joining a Law Society and being involved in their events -- because you're studying law -- a co-curricular experience. An extracurricular experience can give you all the same benefits, but it's something completely additional. You didn't have to do it. It may not even be related to your chemical engineering degree. Becoming the president of the matcha society, for example -- it's something you're interested in doing. It's extra, in addition to your main area of study.

Rob: So what are some of the things people can do that are extracurricular -- the extra stuff that you can do to start developing these critical skills for your resume, and for you personally?

Practical ways to get involved: clubs, volunteering, and societies

Guest: I want to go back quickly to what you said, that a lot of these clubs and opportunities just look like fun, and you might think, "Do I even have time for fun at university?" They are fun, they are meant to have elements of fun, but they are also spaces where you can actually learn a range of different skills. You can jump into volunteering -- most universities have some form of volunteering programme, either standalone or embedded in a club, where they might say, "Can we have volunteers to help with the artwork to promote an activity?" It could be any sort of volunteering.

Guest: If you are a new student thinking, "Well, what can I do?" -- universities, when they have big orientation events, promote all the fun-looking stuff. But underneath that, there could be opportunities to further deepen your career interests or your professional and personal interests. The best thing is just to look at what's available, and initially maybe join experiences you find interesting. You could join the Chocolate Appreciation Society, the Creative Arts Society, or the Students for Sustainability Society. You might join initially because you want to be with like-minded people, but after that you could find ways to get more involved -- not just attending events, but learning to network and make friends. Then you might say, "Hey, I think I'm ready to take the next step up when the next round of elections comes up." You might say, "I've really enjoyed my six, eight, twelve months here -- I think I'm ready to work with a few of the people I've networked with, and we'll become a new leadership team."

Guest: Most of the time the costs are low, if any. Many universities offer these experiences for free, and if something's not for you, nine and a half times out of ten there's no obligation to continue. You can drop out, not renew the membership, and find the next thing that suits your interests. And as you go through university and learn through your academic studies, you might start realising there are different areas of interest you'd like to explore. I've spoken to students who said, "I've got no idea what sustainability is" -- they thought it was just about recycling bins -- and then they attended a few sessions and suddenly found a passion they didn't know they had. They realised sustainability covers environmental and social elements too, and suddenly they'd found a new passion that aligned with their career interests or ran alongside them.

Rob: Sometimes you think of volunteering as something formal and scary -- maybe you picture a soup kitchen, and you're not sure if you'll be good at it. When I was in first year, I was in a biology class and we were walking through the biology building with a professor showing us around the faculty. We walked past his laboratory and he pointed at the door and said, "This is the biodiversity laboratory -- you can go in there and volunteer." We kind of walked on, but I thought, "That sounds interesting." So after one of the classes I went back and said, "Hey, could you introduce me to those biodiversity people?" And Veronica, what that led to was meeting all the professors in that area, building personal relationships, and it led to paid work -- really well paid work -- and fully paid field trip experiences with real researchers out in the field, out in the desert, doing biodiversity collection. It was extraordinary, and it was just because of a throwaway remark from an academic. It doesn't have to be formal, it doesn't have to be scary -- it can be, as you've said, just volunteering with a club at an event.

Guest: The volunteering is amazing. All universities have sports organisations, and you don't have to be an elite athlete -- a lot of them cater for amateur athletes, with elite avenues available too. There are clubs for debating and other skill-building areas. Some universities have various leadership programmes, such as a global leadership programme where you can learn about global perspectives. You could also go on a global exchange experience -- for most students that's extracurricular, an extra thing you choose to do to develop a whole range of new skills: independence, language skills, perhaps cross-cultural understanding.

Guest: Leadership programmes on campus could include learning from speakers who have become successful, or learning from alumni. There may be young alumni programmes where, as you're approaching the end of your degree, you can join and learn what young alumni gained from the university experience and how they navigated their next steps. There are quite a few universities that have a coordinated student life or extracurricular unit that actually recognises many different student leadership, volunteering, and mentoring experiences across campus, and students can sometimes earn badges, certificates, or have them recognised on their transcript. A few that I know of -- and this list isn't exclusive -- include RMIT Plus at RMIT, and UTS Advantage at UTS. There are some universities that have a one-stop shop where you can say, "I want to add these skills to my resume," and under that you'll find a list of all the different things available so you can choose the ones that align with your areas of interest.

Guest: It doesn't have to be scary. Going back to what I said at the start: university is a microcosm of the bigger wide world. It's a sandpit, a play area. Just explore, learn, develop yourself as a multi-dimensional person, not just someone who is an expert in an academic field. If you open that door, have a peek inside, and don't like it, just shut it and move to the next one.

Paid on-campus work and formal recognition of student leadership

Rob: Just to clarify for anyone listening -- "alumni" means graduates of a university. Universities do encourage you to stay involved once you finish your degree, and you can actually get involved in some of that before you finish. You mentioned student exchange and overseas study -- that's a whole session on its own, so check the session catalogue below. One thing I wanted to tease out, Veronica, is that there's a whole side of university where, if you do well in particular areas -- academic or extracurricular -- there are paid opportunities available. For example, being part of a PASS programme, a Peer-Assisted Study Sessions programme, where you're getting paid to help other students because you've done well yourself. That's a fantastic way to develop those skills too, isn't it?

Guest: Definitely. At UTS we have a programme called UPass that does exactly that. There are also, at least at this university, a couple of other opportunities where you could become a careers intern -- going through training, perhaps volunteering first, and then later being paid to support other students learning about careers. These paid opportunities obviously vary across different universities, but you can definitely seek them out. You earn money, but you also further develop those skills and add them to your resume as transferable skills.

Rob: Getting an on-campus job is genuinely the best job when you're at uni, because it's where you need to be anyway. They actually pay really well at that entry level. Plus you become part of the ecosystem, you get to meet people, and you start building your networking skills. This is definitely worth exploring.

Guest: 100%. You don't get the same freedom to explore once you're in a nine-to-five full-time job, and university is a great place to start that exploration.

How to design your on-campus experience with intention

Rob: Some of this can happen organically -- like my experience walking down the hallway in the biology building -- but we can also do this by design. If somebody wanted to be methodical about picking out experiences to level up these core skills, what advice would you have?

Guest: You can actually start doing some of that research before you begin uni, because most universities advertise these types of opportunities on their website. If you're passionate about sustainability, for example, you can look up what the uni is already doing in that space and check the club listings to see if there are clubs already there for you to join. But definitely attend orientation. I do know a lot of students who don't, perhaps because they already have their friend group and think they're all set. But attending orientation, especially clubs days where lots of organisations promote themselves, is really valuable. Orientation usually also has information sessions, and you might look at that list -- a bit like this expo, really -- and think, "I like that topic, maybe I'll go along to that talk."

Guest: One of the biggest things I'd say is that if you do come with a group of your own friends to the same uni, it can be easy to just stick together. Of course, I'm not saying abandon your friendships, but if something interests you and your friends aren't keen, be a little brave and say, "I'm just going to head off to this one interesting thing." Mark things down, attend first meetings, sign up for different things. I do know students who sign up at orientation to ten clubs, and usually after half a year they've narrowed it down to only a couple -- but that's okay. Sign up and explore.

Guest: Curiosity is an amazing and very important skill. Just ask questions, look around, explore. And if you like what you find in a particular experience, think, "I've learned, I've made friends -- what can I start giving back?" Leadership isn't done in isolation. Leadership has to be done with others. So at some point, find a way of giving back. If you look at uni as a path to your career, think about the future: one day you won't be an entry-level employee, you'll hopefully become a manager, a director, or run your own business. You'll need leadership skills. Why not start small? Six months in, enjoying the matcha club. Year two, becoming the president or one of the officers. You're developing skills you will use down the track in your career. Be intentional, think about what aligns with your personal interests and career goals, and plot that path towards your area of interest.

Rob: Absolutely. Another reason I find it compelling to be methodical about this is that every university has scholarships and prizes available for people who contribute and do well -- not just academically, but in these extracurricular areas too. There are real rewards on offer, in terms of recognition on your resume and money through scholarships and other things. So there is a real incentive to get involved.

Making friends and wrapping up

Rob: We're running very close to time. I just want to mention one more session, Veronica, that's so relevant to what you've been talking about. I did a great session earlier in the week with Jemima Maiden, who is an actress and musician now based in London, and we talked a lot about what uni is all about -- and we ended up talking a lot about making friends. The research shows it's the number one concern for people starting uni: how am I going to make friends? If that's something on your mind, and maybe what Veronica and I have been talking about sounds overwhelming and scary, go back and watch that session. It's called "What's Uni All About Anyway?" We go into detail about how to make friends at uni, including through the kinds of experiences Veronica and I have been discussing.

Guest: What a way to make friends -- just by getting involved in these things.

Rob: 100%. Veronica, thank you so much for joining me at the National Virtual Expo. My guest has been Veronica Wong from the University of Technology Sydney. There are a lot more sessions, ladies and gentlemen -- all the details are in the session catalogue. If you're watching on the replay and you have specific or general questions about uni, jump on the Discord or the Facebook group and we'll make sure you get an answer. Veronica, always great to chat with you.

Guest: Lovely to chat with you, Rob. Thank you. Bye.