Always Choosing the Unfamiliar

Ashley Diec isn’t content with staying in her comfort zone – in fact, she has made a habit of choosing the unfamiliar. Whether it means solo flights halfway across the world or tackling essay topics outside her school experience, Ashley sees growth as something that happens at the edge of what’s easy and known.

Her first step came on our Oxford summer school program. There, as she explains, she pursued a longstanding ambition: studying a supercurricular law course through an Immerse summer course at Oxford University. That first step brought her face to face with academic rigor, new traditions, and the challenge of independent travel.

Oxford: Building Confidence Abroad

Independent travel and new traditions could have been daunting, but Oxford turned out to be the perfect balance of demanding and manageable. Ashley recalls that Oxford was  “nerve wracking, because you’re meeting lots of new people. But… I made a lot of friends, which was really nice”. The experience left her with “confidence that she could do more”.

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New York: Broadening Her Perspective

Ashley didn’t rest on her Oxford laurels.The following year, she stretched her comfort zone even farther by enrolling in a finance and banking summer school course in New York – deliberately stepping outside her usual legal focus. “This year I did a banking and finance course in New York and I found that really interesting as well: it’s relevant to the legal industry, and meant I could branch out from doing law again,” she said.

The environment was new, and the structure of a Career Insights course differed from her Academic Insights experience in Oxford. 

“At Oxford there were classes every day. But in New York, we had industry visits as well, every second day. I thought the Reserve Bank was really cool where we even got to see $5 billion worth of gold,” Ashley remembers, before adding, “We went to the New York Institute of Finance to listen to a guest speaker as well as go on a tour at Wall Street.”

It’s clear the breadth of both experiences gave her something new each time. She appreciated Oxford’s facilities, but thrived with New York’s schedule. “I think I prefer the campus and facilities at Oxford. But I do think the environment of New York was really nice… I also enjoyed the extracurriculars more than the activities in Oxford.” 

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Essay Competition: Embracing the Unfamiliar

Ashley’s willingness to push further was evident in her choice of essay topic for an Immerse competition – receiving a scholarship to the New York Summer Programme. Instead of defaulting to her comfort zone, she selected a subject “far removed from her school curriculum”.

“I wrote about the injustices we see for Indigenous Australians within the legal system and talked about whether or not we can really get justice for Indigenous Australians… things that are happening currently within our society, such as circle sentencing… they often face a lot of discrimination and a lot of disadvantages in our society. The main focus was looking at how justice can be achieved for Indigenous Australians” she explains.

The topic required her to stretch: “It wasn’t exactly an area I was familiar with. So I did a lot of research at first.” It was, she said, a very different kind of essay writing than anything taught in school: “For English, we have to write essays, but it’s quite different in terms of the writing style. It was definitely a good experience to have just to learn how to write in different styles.”

Growth in Confidence, Breadth in Perspective

The result of these choices has been a tangible expansion of Ashley’s worldview. Independent travel, navigating new academic disciplines, and forming friendships across continents now feel routine.

The experience, Ashley says, has proven invaluable: “Getting a really good insight into the banking and finance industry… making a lot of new friends who come from all around the world, who I still talk to now, is really good”.

Asked if these experiences will play a part in her university applications, she’s confident: “Yeah, I definitely think it will help because these programmes have given me an opportunity to get a broad understanding of the respective industries, which I hope will help me in the future”. 

The Road Ahead

The effect is clear. By moving outside of comfort zones, academically, culturally, and personally, Ashley hasn’t narrowed her path, she’s broadened it. Her law ambitions remain as sharp as ever, shaped by the breadth of experiences she sought:

“I hope to study law in the future, and these programmes have definitely helped me get a better understanding of the industry.”

Ashley’s story shows that stepping outside your comfort zone doesn’t just build confidence – it adds depth, breadth, and brightens the path ahead.