Alumni Stories
GRADS 2025: Stephanie Suteska
Born in Australia to Macedonian parents, Stephanie Suteska spoke Macedonian at home and English at school.
For her first two years of schooling, Steph worked one-on-one with a specialist English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher.
“She taught me how to speak, read and write English. She was absolutely amazing and a big influence on me,” Steph says.
The other great inspirations in her life were her parents, who instilled in Steph a strong work ethic and dedication to community and stuck by her supportively throughout her studies.
“They always had the patience to sit and listen to my presentations. When I feel low, they've always been there to bring me back up into a positive mindset,” Steph says.
It’s thanks to them that I fell in love with helping and giving back [to the community]. My hope in life is to be as successful and hardworking as they are.
Today, Steph graduated with a double degree, a Bachelor of Secondary Education and a Bachelor of Arts, Sociology and Political Science (Society and Culture) from the º£½ÇÉäÇø.
While she’s just recently secured her first full-time teaching job as a Humanities teacher at , the fresh graduate is already a veteran in the education field.
There was no doubt in Steph’s mind that she wanted to pay it forward to the next generation – so she started her career early.
From the time she was in Year 11, Steph completed work experience in schools to see the classroom from a teacher's perspective. She earned two certificates in education and jumped straight into work as a qualified teacher’s assistant, behavioural officer, and distant education curriculum advisor after graduating high school.
In these support roles, Steph could help students who faced challenges in learning – the way that others had helped her in the past.
“As someone who has done ESL and grown within that, I understand how important it is that students have the support they need to learn and succeed,” Steph says.
In the meantime, she had also started studying. The core education units of her degree were delivered through UC’s Faculty of Education, where she studied topics such as the science of learning, classroom management and lesson planning in a secondary context. In her Arts degree, completed through the Faculty of Business, Government and Law, she delved into her subject specialisation – Humanities.
Sometimes commitments in the different disciplines would clash – an oral presentation due for business management when a school placement was taking place – but Steph’s tutors were always flexible and supportive to help her balance the load.
For three and a half years, Steph was working or doing placements in schools during the day, attending university tutorials in the evening, and utilising her little free time to study on the weekends.
Steph’s passion for her teaching practice was unmistakable, earning her the Promising Preservice Teacher Award from NSW Education in 2023, after being nominated by both Finigan School of Distance Education and Queanbeyan High School.
Through a combination of this hard work, recognition of prior learning (RPL) and winter and summer terms, Steph was able to fast track her degree, and was able to complete her degree six months early.
Now as a qualified HASS teacher, Steph is teaching Year 10 Economics and Business, Crime and Politics, and History at St Mary MacKillop College Canberra, and couldn’t be happier with the rewarding switch to classroom teaching.
“You get to see the students grow in what they love, and you start to pick up on their passions and incorporate those into your teaching. I absolutely love it!” Steph says.
As a graduate teacher, the school has been absolutely amazing. If you're going through a challenging moment, they're always there to help. Their early career mentoring program is perfect!
She also took on a Work Studies role within the school, where her business management learnings have come in handy.
“I absolutely blossomed in the role, because you help form partnerships for the school and work with external employers to get students out on work experience, which connected to my business degree, which was all about organisational behaviours and communication.”
Steph is dedicated to creating an engaging learning environment for her students and luckily, her education classes provided the perfect foundation to create exciting lesson plans.
“I always want to make education interesting. So, when teaching a topic, I’m incorporating debates, creative activities, relevant games and getting students engaged. They taught us lots of different teaching strategies at UC,” Steph says.
“One of my tutorial lecturers told us you need to have a strong understanding of literacy and numeracy strategies, you need to have effective organisational skills, and if you're creative and you're passionate, that's when you will have a successful classroom.”
And while she’s now working her dream job as a classroom teacher, this isn’t the end of Steph’s journey with UC. Next year, she returns to study a Master of Education (Leadership).
Words by Kelly White, photos by Tyler Cherry.
This September, we celebrate the graduating class of 2025.
Our graduates are from many different places, at various stages of life, with diverse skills and perspectives. In their time at UC, each one has contributed to the fabric of the University community. While their journey here may be complete for now, their actions will leave an indelible imprint on generations to come.
We congratulate the graduating class of 2025; we can’t wait to see where you will go next.