Tapping the alumni: Roshini Balasooriya’s tips for aspiring Westpac Future Leaders Scholars

Mental health professional Roshini Balasooriya says her biggest rush of motivation when applying for a Westpac Future Leaders Scholarship sprang from talking to past recipients and, since earning the award, it’s helped open new doors for her PhD research. 

 

Roshini Balasooriya recalls how confronting it was when she realised how frequently severe mental illness affected young people, sparking in her a drive to look at new ways of tackling the problem.  

 

“I was working as a clinical psychiatry resident and could see that the patient population in the adult psychiatry ward was significantly skewed towards younger ages – in their 20s or 30s,” says Balasooriya who graduated with first class honours from Melbourne’s Monash University in 2020 rounded out with a year at University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

 

“Despite being so young, they could already be presenting with severe or chronic mental illness, and it was affecting so many different areas of their lives.”

 

The experience reinforced Balasooriya’s conviction to train as a psychiatrist specialising in treatment for young people. But she also realised a preventative approach was critical, and this propelled her to pursue a PhD, commencing in 2023. 

 

“My PhD research focuses on how we can strengthen interventions, particularly in schools, to promote mental health and wellbeing in adolescents,” she says. “Ultimately, I want to work from both a treatment and a preventative perspective, side by side, so my PhD is essentially a gateway to the public health and policy sector to help make sure interventions in schools are effective and responsive to the needs and preferences of young people.”   

 

Adding academic fuel

 

Balasooriya’s PhD research was given a serious boost towards the end of last year. After successfully applying for a Westpac Future Leaders Scholarship, the funding supported her to spend three months on exchange at the University of Galway in Ireland with one of the world leaders in her area of study, Professor Margaret Barry. Balasooriya describes the experience as “formative”.

 

“I worked very closely with Margaret and was able to learn an immense amount both from a theoretical perspective as well as getting a better understanding of how we can get interventions well established in local contexts,” says Balasooriya, whose collaboration with Professor Barry has continued since returning to Australia. 

 

Among the academic doors opened during her exchange, Balasooriya was invited to present her PhD research at a World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Health Promotion Research in Ireland. “I was able to get great feedback which was such a crucial experience as part of my PhD. It provided a lot of fuel to keep going with my ideas and bring them to life.”  

   

Tackling time head on

 

The aspect of the Westpac Future Leaders Scholarship that initially caught Balasooriya’s eye was its emphasis on developing the leadership skills of scholars – which wasn’t as prominent in other programs she’d assessed – along with the chance of forming likeminded connections in the Westpac Scholars network which she’d heard so much about from alumni.

 

But she did have hesitations.

 

At the top of the list was a concern about the time required to “do justice” to the application, given that, at the time, Balasooriya was working full-time as a doctor with Alfred Health and teaching into the Medical Ethics Program at Monash University.

“I combated that by making sure I started the application well in advance, and that I had a very structured plan about how I was going to go about it.”

 

Shooing away imposter syndrome

 

Balasooriya also battled self-doubt, particularly in the lead up to the National Assessment Centre – or NAC – during the application process. “I'd never done an interstate interview before and some parts of the interview process, like the networking breakfast and group interviews, were also foreign to me, so that compounded things,” she recalls. 

 

“But as it turns out, I genuinely enjoyed the NAC and found you’re actually able to derive a lot of confidence and self-belief from the experience. All of the applicants were genuinely good people to be around, the Westpac team were supporting us, and the panel interviewers went out of their way to make us comfortable.

 

“There was no sense of trying to intimidate or scare us; they were really on our side, and that helped me feel calm. It felt more like a conference than an interview at the end of the day.”

 

She also reflects that every single scholar in her cohort later told her they felt imposter syndrome too. “I think it’s important to keep in mind that a lot of the other applicants are feeling those types of emotions and so, try not to be overwhelmed by it or let it act as a barrier to apply.”  

 

Tapping into alumni 

 

Balasooriya’s biggest tip to aspiring Westpac Future Leaders Scholars is to talk to past scholars.

 

“The scholars I spoke to from the year before me raved about the scholarship, and that's what I really needed to hear. It gave me such a big rush of motivation and excitement,” she says.

 

“It’s also been nice to then pick up that friendship going forward and stay connected through that larger community. 

 

“Truly one of the joys of being a part of the group of scholars is you have people from diverse backgrounds where you're able to learn about their unique perspectives and life experiences, and it's been so enriching to what we've all been able to learn as a group.”

 

Applications are now open for the Westpac Future Leaders Scholarship. Find out how you could receive up to $120,000 to support your studies or research at one of nine universities across Australia while gaining access to bespoke leadership and mentoring opportunities. 

 

Published 18 July 2024