There are plenty of ways you can improve lifestyles with a health career
Obsessed with sport, or food? Sport and wellbeing courses can make a real difference to people’s quality of life. Whether you’re healing people’s minds with psychology, or their bodies with physiology, working one-on-one with clients or broadly with communities, QUT can help you find your way to your dream career.
Skills boost
Working on these skills will boost your career in coaching and wellbeing
- Anatomy
- Communication
- Data analysis
- Critical thinking
Meet Kaine Doblo, Strength and conditioning coach
Kaine doesn’t have a typical work day – but since he loves working with sport teams, it’s worth it.
On any given day, he might be meeting clients as a personal trainer, working with the Coorparoo Kings state AFL team as a strength and conditioning coach, with premier league netball teams, in the Brisbane Lions academy, or managing his business.
“I’ve never in a million years thought I’d be running a business for myself and having someone work underneath me,” he says. “But I’ve actually enjoyed that managerial, entrepreneurship role.”
As the first member of his family to go to uni, Kaine found QUT a welcoming place. “QUT was a place for everyone to go.”
It also provided him with key training in health science and psychology.
“The element of psychology in there is pretty underrated,” he says.
“[Exercises] are important, of course, but if you can’t get someone to buy in to what you’re trying to get them to achieve, it’s all irrelevant.”
“Having your week planned out before it’s begun is non-negotiable.”
Kaine’s career path
- Bachelor of Sport and Exercise Science, QUT
- Personal trainer
- Strength and conditioning coach, Coorparoo Kings AFC
- Head of performance, Redland Coast Eagles Netball
- Strength and conditioning coach, Brisbane Lions Boys Academy
Show me the money
- Exercise physiologist: $80k-$90k
- Nutritionist: $100k – $105k
- Dietitian: $85k – $105k
- Personal trainer: $70k – $90k
- Councellor: $90k – $105k
- Youth worker: $80k – $90k
Average salaries according to seek.com.au
Courses to study
- Bachelor of Behavioural Science (Psychology)
- Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology
- Bachelor of Nutrition Science
- Bachelor of Nutrition Science / Master of Nutrition and Dietetics
- Bachelor of Sport and Exercise Science
Employment opportunities
- Exercise physiologist
- Exercise scientist
- Health educator
- Nutritionist
- Wellness consultant
- Dietitian
- Health policy officer
- Health researcher
- Personal trainer
- Sports scientist
- Strength and
- Cnditioning coach
- Counsellor
- Youth worker
Keen on behavioural science and psychology?
Check out our dedicated human behaviour specialist job kit!
Meet Trent Darbyshire, clinical exercise physiologist at The Bone Clinic
As a keen rugby player and long distance runner, Trent was always interested in sport. But once he was studying exercise science, he started to understand the potential it had to improve the lives of non-athletes too.
“It was really interesting learning about how exercise can help people with chronic conditions and illnesses,” he says.
“Anyone can do it, you’ve just got to find a way that suits them.” His work at the Bone Clinic is focused on doing exercise to improve bone density, often for patients with conditions like osteoporosis.
A typical day includes assessing patients with individual consultation sessions, running bone density scans, group classes, and some admin. Trent’s also been running virtual home exercise programs, which are getting sent around the world.
QUT’s practicals were crucial for preparing him for the world of work, first by allowing him to test the waters in the third year of his degree, then head into full-time placements in his fourth year.
But he stresses that you should be learning a lot on the job, as well.
“The learning doesn’t stop!”
Trent’s career path
- Bachelor of Clinical Exercise Physiology, QUT
- Sports trainer (first aid), Start Training Stafford
- Clinical exercise physiologist, Springfield Physiology
- Clinical exercise physiologist, The Bone Clinic
Read more
- Meet a clinical psychologist
- Be a sports star with an exercise science career
- Meet a dietitian-nutritionist
This post was brought to you in partnership with QUT, and first appeared in Careers with STEM: Study Health at QUT.
