Science buff to take a trip in the search for the right career

Year 12 student Leon Polychronopoulos will leave chilly Victoria in July, spending a week at a science forum at the University of Queensland .

Youth ANZAAS is organised by the Australian & New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science.

The forum gives school students around the world the chance to learn from leading scientists, help out with research and get an insiders look at laboratories and other university facilities.

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Mr Polychronopoulos hopes to study medicine at university and wants to use the trip to find out more about the fields he could specialise in.

The aspiring medical student hopes the trip will help him work out what kind of career he could pursue.

“I’d like to help improve access to health services for people in rural Victoria. And at the university I want to get into, they are after people like that,” Mr Polychronopoulos.

Mum Teena Slater said Mr Polychronopoulos had always been highly motivated.

“Some kids really need to be pushed to do their homework. I never had to go through any of that with Leon,” she said.

She said the trip would add to Mr Polychronopoulos’s already busy schedule as a volunteer and student leader.

“I said ‘don’t you have enough on your plate already?’ And he said ‘Well, I want to do this’,” she said.

Mrs Slater is not worried, though.

“He’ll kick a** because he can do all of it ... he is incredibly motivated,” she said.

CCB science facilitator Marita Haigh said the school was pleased to hear Mr Polychronopoulos would take part in Youth ANZAAS.

She said Mr Polychronopoulos was one of three year 12 students traveling interstate or overseas in the next few months for high profile programs. Other students include Canberra-bound Bailey Chappel and Germany-bound Tom Houlden.

“It’s unusual for this school and a lot of others to have so many students accepted to high profile programs at roughly the same time,” she said.

“These three guys are amazing. They are incredible young men in their own right, but academically they are very bright and always willing to give anything a go.”