Caroline Felicia

Master's student

For Caroline, earning a master’s degree is about much more than academic achievement. It is the realisation of a dream she and her family manifested together, defying the expectations once placed upon her.

Growing up, Caroline always knew her family was not wealthy. They had just enough to get by, but her parents instilled in her a deep belief in the power of education, assuring her that she would go to college one day, even if it was somewhere small.

As the first person in her family to graduate university, let alone pursue a master’s degree, Caroline faced early voices of doubt. In high school, a teacher told her she would never amount to anything because she struggled to keep up with the standard way of learning. For a long time, Caroline believed it.

Her family, however, never let that voice win.

Before she had even applied, Caroline and her mother visited the Monash University, Indonesia campus. They were unsure if she could get into a top global university, but they were determined to try. Standing beside the Monash logo on campus, her mother asked to take a photo together. She told Caroline they would bring that picture into their prayers and manifest her future.

A few months later, that dream became a reality.

“Being the only one in my family with a degree could have felt lonely, but it never did, because they carried me through every step of it,” Caroline says. “Every one of them told me how proud they were, even before I’d achieved anything they could point to.”

When Caroline began her Master of Public Health at Monash University, Indonesia, she brought with her a deep, pre-existing passion for psychology and peer counseling. But arriving in a new academic environment brought new challenges. On her first day of class, she realized she was the only student who had not come from a Health Faculty background.

The imposter syndrome set in. She struggled with doubt, questioning whether choosing public health meant she was walking away from the counseling work she truly loved. She felt as though she had made a decision she needed to constantly defend, even to herself.

A conversation with one of her lecturers changed everything.

You are allowed to change your mind. ”

Those words hit Caroline exactly when she needed to hear them. She realised she had been treating her choice to study public health as something fixed, fearing that reconsidering it or growing into it differently meant she had failed.

The lecturer’s reassurance shifted how she viewed her entire trajectory. Caroline realised that public health was not a departure from psychology, but a way to understand it more fully. Instead of only asking why an individual is anxious, Monash was teaching her to look at the broader, layered causes and effects behind it—making her counseling work richer than ever before.

What made this turning point truly powerful, however, was what came next. Her lecturers did not stop at encouraging words; they backed them up with action. Recognising her potential from her assignments, her educators actively pushed her forward—encouraging her to take part in conferences, pointing her toward industry internships, and offering recommendations that opened doors she didn’t know existed.

“That’s when I realised Monash doesn’t just teach,” she says. “They invest in who you could become, and it does that by investing through real opportunities.”

That investment extended into the classroom. Once viewing presentations as a stiff performance to simply survive, Caroline was shown by her lecturers that presenting could be fun, insightful, and professional. It gave her a newfound confidence that she now carries into every room she enters, and into her counseling work.

Today, the gap between what felt "familiar" and what felt "out of reach" has closed completely. Surrounded by a warm, supportive community of students and staff, Caroline no longer feels out of place. Instead, she knows she is exactly where she belongs.

With the unwavering support of her family behind her, Caroline is ensuring her opportunity counts.

"That kind of support is what pushed me to make sure this opportunity would be worth it," she says. "And with Monash, I made it worth it."