Like father, like son: studying side by side

For Sean and Gabriel Flanagan, online study is something they’re experiencing together, as both students and as father and son with the help of CUC Western Downs.

Both studying engineering, often at the same time and in the same place, but they are approaching higher education from very different stages of life.

Sean is completing a Bachelor of Engineering in Instrumentation, Control and Automation, using study as a way to progress his existing career and create a pathway to eventually “get off the tools”. Gabriel, who finished high school in 2025, is in his first year of a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering, pursuing a field that interests him and the career opportunities that come with it.

What they did not necessarily expect was how much studying at the same time would give them in common.

“It’s nice to be able to bounce ideas and brainstorm with him. I understand where he is coming from when he wants to talk about some topics he is studying,” Sean said.

For Gabriel, having someone nearby who understands the demands of university has its advantages too.

“I like it. It gives me someone to ask for help when I’m stuck on a concept or idea, or to look over my assignments for me.”

They may both be engineering students, but there is still plenty of difference between their study sessions. Their majors, subjects and coursework are different, meaning they can sit side by side while working towards two very different futures.

For a family with a busy household, having somewhere dedicated to study has made a noticeable difference.

Sean said studying at home had previously been “very sporadic and broken”, while Gabriel believes he would be moving through his degree at a much slower pace and struggling more with focus. At the Centre, Sean sees his study time as a “more valuable use of my time”, while Gabriel puts it a little more simply: it is easier to “smash out” his study.

But perhaps the most important part of their story is not simply that they can study together. It is that they can do it without leaving their community.

For Gabriel, staying local means remaining close to family and friends, avoiding the cost of relocating and, as he points out, continuing to enjoy home-cooked meals every day.

Their experiences are a small but powerful example of what access to tertiary education can look like in a regional community.

It can be a school leaver beginning the first chapter of his career. It can be a father building on years of experience and creating new possibilities for the future. And sometimes, it can be both of them sitting a few desks apart at their local CUC.