Luke Webb

Petroleum Engineering
“Not many people are awarded the scholarship so it has given me a sense of pride and confidence in myself”

With a childhood love of rocks and minerals, it comes as little surprise that Luke Webb has chosen to forge a career in petroleum engineering. But he also considered other study options, including mining and biomedical engineering. Then, in December 2019, Webb attended the Unearth Your Future event, jointly hosted by SACOME, the Playford Trust and the University of Adelaide to announce the new scholarships. “I found out you could do degrees in finding minerals and ores and I thought that sounds awesome,” he says. “Furthermore I also love doing maths so that opened my eyes to petroleum engineering.” 

The modest 19-year-old decided to apply for the scholarship but admits he had “no expectations” of success. “I just put my best words down and hoped for the best,” he says. “I was pretty happy when I found out I had been accepted – it’s not every day you win a scholarship for that amount of money.
“Not many people are awarded the scholarship so it has given me a sense of pride and confidence in myself.”
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Having the Playford Trust monitoring his progress over the next two years brings no extra pressure for this already driven student. “I’m just going to do my best and not really think about it,” he says. “It’s like Year 12 – that was a lot of pressure to get into university but I zoned that all out and did the best I could, so that’s what I’m going to do now.”
Webb plans to use the money to help fund his four years of study at Adelaide University, after which the world beckons. “I’d love to work for a petroleum company and travel the world,” he says. “If I can work in Australia, the US and Canada, that would be pretty cool.”