Navy rank gives Stacey a degree of certainty
Published on 22 July, 2008
Stacey Rigney walked out of CQUniversity recently, confident that she had already established a career path with the Australian Navy.
In fact, the mechanical engineering (Co-op) student had already been allocated a rank and had gained work experience with the Navy's helicopter service.
Stacey's new career path will be a change of pace from some of her other pursuits as a talented ballet performer and pianist.
In fact, she's qualified to teach in both dance and piano, providing yet another career option in later life.
The Navy first came up on Stacey's career radar about 10 years ago when her brother joined up.
"In 2006 I went on to their online recruiting website and filled out some surveys to produce a list of what would be an ideal job and the first one that came up was aeronautical engineer," she said.
"I had previously thought I would like to do aeronautical engineering but wasn't quite sure where ... even though my brother was in the Navy it never occurred to me there were engineers in the Navy.
"I thought YES that's exactly what I want to do."
Stacey signed up in January 2007 for a Navy undergraduate sponsorship program and became a permanent member of the Navy with a rank, a salary and uniform.
"In return I had to study hard at Uni, attend one week of initial training and attend work experience at a Navy base," she said.
Upon completion of her undergraduate degree, Stacey's rank has risen from midshipman to Sub Lieutenant.
She has 6 months of basic military training ahead before a couple of years of "learning everything about everything".
Further ahead, she can specialise by becoming a maintenance engineer in one of the squadrons or by designing and testing new equipment for a flight test unit.