Back to School With Shelley Argent

Shelley's father told her "girls didn't need an education". At 45, she finally got to uni.

This post is presented in partnership with Bankwest.

Our webseries Back to School With invites Australia's most interesting and successful people to share stories from their school days. In each ep, they let us know how they landed their dream careers, as well as how they faced all those inevitable obstacles of teenagerdom along the way.

Over five seasons, we've interviewed Jimmy Barnes, Julie Bishop, Samantha Jade, Dr. Karl, Daniel Ricciardo, Ita Buttrose, Tom Ballard, Layne Beachley, John Marsden and many, many other fascinating peeps.

But a new year brings a new season... and even more incredible Aussie stories.

In the fifth episode of Season Six, we chat with Shelley Argent, OAM. Shelley told us how she became an unlikely gay rights advocate and Senior Australian of the Year, while also revealing how she hated school as a child and was told by her father that "girls didn't need an education" (only to finally enrol in university at age 45).

"Year 12 is not the be all and end all, because you can fail miserably at school but there is another way of getting into uni and achieving what you want."

Check out our chat.

Stay tuned: We'll be dropping new episodes each Tuesday. Join us as we venture back in time with another Aussie legend every week!

In the meantime, catch up with previous seasons:

Season One

Season Two

Season Three

Season Four

Season Five

You can find our Season Six archive here:

Season Six

Back to School With Season Six is presented by Bankwest. Need a bank account with student benefits? Find out more here (and remember to consider the PDS).

Photo: Student Edge.