Nicole Newsome
Class of 1984

Nicole Newsome grew up on a sheep and cattle farm in Dundee, New South Wales. She was one of seven children, all of whom were sent to boarding schools in Sydney. St Vincent’s College, Potts Point was a natural choice for Nicole’s final two years of schooling as her mother attended the College in the 1950s and spoke fondly of the nuns and the friendships she had made.

St Vincent’s was a big change from St Joseph’s in Glen Innes, a small school of about 100 students. Nicole also had to adjust to life as a boarder:

The routine…I don’t think that was too much of a shock really. It’s just basically the food was a bit of a shock, the food wasn't that good (laughs). Someone said you must make friends with someone that doesn’t like dessert very early on (laughs). But no, it was…I guess a shock going to have to remember everything you needed for that day, but I guess when you’re out of town you’d have to remember that earlier on anyway so it was probably quite good because you could have a locker at school and have your books there whereas otherwise you had to bring them backwards and forwards because we were a long way out of town. No the routine wasn’t too hard to adjust to really…not that I can remember anyway it was a long time ago. Probably I think we got up about seven, and then we probably did some study beforehand and then breakfast and then to school. And I did a lot of study because I really wanted to get into vet, and so I had to do quite a lot of study. So we did like four or five hours of study a night and after, probably dinner and things like that. But the accommodation was quite good, St Vincent’s had better boarding facilities than a lot of the girls’…I think the first term we were, there were a lot of girls in the room and that was a bit hard to…learning to adjust to having sleeping with so many different people, but then that, you ended up in smaller rooms so it didn’t really matter.

Life at St Vincent's

Though Nicole spent most of her time studying, preparing for her goal of studying veterinary science at university, she also undertook weekend sports with friends and various leisure activities. She recalls weekend rituals such as swimming in the school pool early morning each Saturday and going to the movies on a Sunday, followed by Pancakes On The Rocks:

Nicole Newsome: Well the swimming pool always had a good view. I think boarders often illegally climbed over and went for a swim when they shouldn’t have. It was, it’s a beautiful area there. And we had our accommodation in Bethania which is now more of a performing arts area. And the Chapel was beautiful, always has been. And the Tarmons area now that was just for the nuns, so that is now part of the school, so that’s probably a big change…

Nicole Cama: So what about the Chapel was so beautiful, because a lot of people have mentioned the Chapel…

Nicole Newsome: It was beautiful the Chapel, it just really is a lovely building. I can remember fainting in a school mass because it would often get hot and humid. But yes, it’s a beautiful Chapel, there’s no doubt it was lovely.

Nicole’s favourite subjects were Economics, History and English. She notes the teachers at St Vincent’s were very good and feels that attitudes toward the education of girls and tertiary options for women were going through a transformation at the time:

I don’t think it [St Vincent’s] was that academic when I was there. I was second in my year but, which was a good mark but…there was a certain percentage of the girls that didn’t go to university just went and became secretaries, so it was on the cusp of when women were changing. Does that make sense? I don’t think anyone from…one girl actually who went Sancta [Sancta Sophia College at University of Sydney] with me did law, and there was a dentist, no one from my year did medicine. There was probably 10 in the higher marks but it was a time of change. Whereas some of the other schools had more people doing the combination law…When I went from, like that’s not being critical, but when I went from St Vincent’s I then went to Sancta Sophia and I think Vinnie’s probably became more academic but it wasn’t…it was a cusp of change for women too at that time. People I think were then realising it was really important to get a high education.

Graduation

Graduation was a significant event for the class of 1984. Most of the students made their debut at the University of New South Wales’ Roundhouse and the school formal was a ‘smart’ occasion at the Opera House, at which Nicole recalls wearing an apricot coloured taffeta dress. She went on to study veterinary science at the University of Sydney and later established her clinic, Jersey Road Vet in Woollahra, which she has operated for the past 20 years. Reflecting on her two years at the College, Nicole said:

I think the best thing about the school is the pastoral care. And I even think in my job now there’s a lot of nurturing and counselling and a lot of empathy involved. This is a different area because I’m in an expensive area here, but I haven’t always worked here, now I own this business so I’m stuck here. But I think having that capacity to care for people and the social justice side of the school is really really good I think. And it was instilled from my home, but they really did, through that religion side of it, really tried to instil a compassion for other people less fortunate. Because we did have a lot of opportunities, even the opportunity of education gets people out of poverty. I was from a large family and my family ended up probably having quite a lot of assets but during the cattle recession things were pretty tight for us when we were growing up. But having an education gives you opportunities that you can’t take that away from someone once they have that.

She admires the College’s ‘ethos’ and believes the values around social justice and caring for others was very important:

Probably through the religion side, but also because the nuns were the Charity nuns and they do have that ethos of caring for the less fortunate and it wasn’t just like a, you know, Eastern suburbs princess school, it was really drummed into us to care for people that didn’t have the opportunities. And I think that is a really nice part of the school ethos really. Because even in different jobs people have to be able to communicate with people from all walks of life, and so I think St Vincent’s did focus on empathy for other people, which I think is really important.

Nicole’s advice to current students is to ‘treasure the friends you make’ and make the most of the opportunities on offer at St Vincent’s and beyond.