Mu Yeh from Nhill was our guest speaker today, telling us about his mind-bending experiences at the National Youth Science Forum in Brisbane. 

Several Nhill Rotary Club members and guests joined the Zoom meeting.

Mu Yeh first told us a little about himself: how he was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, and came to Australia in 2009 at the age of seven.  His father was recruited by John Millington to work in Nhill, and Mu Yeh loves living there. 

He has always been interested in science, reading library books on the subject, and about how the body functions. 

In Year 10 he had work experience in a medical practice, read an anatomy text-book, and decided he would like to become a surgeon. This choice may have been influenced by his experience in the refugee camp, where he had a fall with a severe head injury, leading to a coma and brain surgery, and being given only a slight hope of survival. 

Mu told us how he made his first NYSF friend on the plane to Brisbane: a student from Horsham, and how how became friends with his allocated buddy Ramusha, a cricket and mathematics fanatic. 

2020 NYSF participants. We think Mu Yeh is somewhere in the centre, three rows from the back.

At the NYSF there were many lectures from renowned scientists, covering multiple subjects. Mu became part of the Einstein Group, mainly investigating Physics. 

He particularly liked the lectures on Neuroscience and brain function, Science in Antarctica, and “the  key to overcoming procrastination”. 

Mu’s presentation included a brilliant demonstration of how super-conductors behave under extremely cold conditions. 

His group became such good friends, that on the last evening they all ended up in one room at 3.00 am, eating take-away pizzas. 

Mu recommended The NYSF as a great way of finding a career, and of selecting options of what to study. It has given him memories he will never forget. 

Questions following Mu’s address elicited how students in Nhill were coping with the Corona Virus lockdown, as those on farms often had poor internet access. It was making face-to-face contacts with tutors very difficult. 

His preference of Melbourne or Monash Universities to study medicine was discussed, with options at Deakin, and subjects to select were discussed. 

Mu ended his session by thanking Hawthorn and Nhill Rotary Clubs for making his attendance at the NYSF possible.