This Year Director of Advancement Paul Galea has been reaching out to IGS Alums to find out “where in the world are they?”.
On Wednesdays, Paul shares the words of one Alum living interstate or overseas with our Alum networks on various Social Media channels.
“As a local school with a global perspective, it comes as no surprise that many of our students have decided to take their careers and lives to new and exciting places,” said Paul.
“It gives me great pleasure to know where our students have ended up, and of course, that there are IGS Alums on even the farthest corners of the globe!”
So far Paul has received WITWATs from Alums living in Germany, Bhutan and The Democratic Republic of the Congo.
This week Paul shares the first three WITWATs of the year.
Asher Polgar (2006) Republic of the Congo, Africa
“I finished high school, focusing on STEM and German, knowing I wanted to study Engineering but wasn’t exactly sure which type. Mining attracted me due to the travel opportunities and fast-paced work.
“4 years later I graduated and moved to Western Australia to work in the gold mines. It wasn’t long before I stepped outside of my comfort zone and started a role at a mine in the highlands of Papua New Guinea before moving to rural Congo.
“While in Sydney on break from work, I met my fiancé, Margaret Barbouttis. Lucky we both recognised each other from our early IGS primary school days together!”
Annouchka Farrenc (2002) Vancouver Island, BC, Canada
“I left Australia in 2010 in search of better work opportunities in VFX. I was about 4 years into my career and at the time there weren’t that many VFX companies in Australia and I was already working at one of the biggest: Animal Logic. I tried London for a couple of years and while I worked at some prestigious studios there such as Double Negative and Framestore, I didn’t vibe with the London culture and the lack of accessible nature, to put it in simple terms.
“I came to Vancouver, Canada in 2012, and found great work right away at Digital Domain. They call Vancouver “Hollywood North” after all. On top of the work being great, the people were great, the city was great, the endless nature was great, and the snowboarding was great: so I vibed with this part of the world.
“I ended up staying way longer than I originally intended and I did jump around to many different studios over the 10.5 years that I was in living in the city there. Very recently my husband and I decided to make the move to Vancouver Island, just a ferry ride away from Vancouver.
“During the pandemic, my work became all remote and it hasn’t shifted back since. So we no longer needed to stay in the city for our jobs and decided we wanted to get even closer to nature out on the island. It also helps that housing prices out here are more affordable than in the city. It’s a slower and stress-free pace here: ‘island time’. So far, so good!”
Freddie Fitzpatrick (2014) Melbourne, Australia
“I’m in Melbourne at the moment with a show that I wrote. The show opened on January 27 and closed on February 4 at La Mama HQ in Carlton, which is one of the companies in Melbourne that produce independent theatre made by emerging artists. It’s the first (paid) production that I have been a part of and how exciting that it is my script! Here is a link that has all the information about the show.
“I’m currently developing the next script, which is as challenging as any other project. There is a lot of drafting and redrafting and rewriting and editing! I’m also working through my Master of Teaching (Secondary) English at UTS, which I’m enjoying.”
