I'm not your typical 23-year-old. I stay in every weekend, eat frozen fruit instead of fresh. And honestly, I couldn't tell（ 告诉） you the last time I went out for a coffee or meal with my friends. It's not because I don't want to, it's because I can't afford to. Raise your hand if you're feeling the pressure from the rising cost of living. The cost of living has soared（高飞） and everyone is feeling the pinch（捏）.

  Now, I want you to imagine working（使工作） the same hours that you do right now, but your income（收入） was slashed（ 大量削减） in half. What would that feel like? In the healthcare（ 卫生保健） industry, many of our essential professions, such as psychology（ 心理学）, nursing（护理）, and social work, require students to take on mandatory（命令的）, unpaid（ 未付款的） placements. I'm currently studying my Masters of Psychology and across my two-year degree and an order to become a generally registered（登记） psychologist（心理学家）. It is a requirement（需要） that I work（使工作） 1,000 hours of placement. For the past year and a half, I had been consistently（一贯地） working（使工作） two to three days a week for free.

  That is 750 hours of unpaid work. There is no denying（否定） that placements and our supervisor（督导）'s support is essential for our learning. But when I'm on placement, I'm not just in the corner observing（遵守）. I'm allocated（分配） my own client load（负载） responsible for client admin, session（会议） planning treatment, diagnostic formulation（构想）, detailed（细节的） record keeping, all in addition to conducting（指挥） the appointment itself. I cannot stand here and ignore the crippling（ 令人震惊的） impact unpaid（ 未付款的） placement has had on the mental and physical health of my friends. I cannot help but foresee the financial repercussions of this training model for healthcare students and by extension（延长部分） women.

  And I will not ignore the impact it has had on me. We're all familiar with the broke student narrative. Living off two-minute noodles and in a share house that is falling apart is seen as a rite（仪式） of passage（通过）. I want to challenge（向…挑战） that narrative, particularly for students providing life-saving services. Students in our critical（决定性的） industries are being sent into emotionally（感情上地） and physically demanding（要求） workplaces, like hospitals with high-risk clients, and are being expected to provide a high-quality service whilst（当…的时候） they are struggling（ 努力）. We are taught that no deep learning or work happens when you don't have your base financial, physical and emotional（感情的） needs met.