It was very pleasing that in the midst of exams and handing in significant assignments, 32 students of the Petroleum Engineering Faculty of the UNSW were able to attend this talk. Obviously, it would have been great if the Geology/ Geophysics students could have attended too. The effort of Dr. Peter Neal in getting this talk organised is much appreciated.

An additional thrill for me was to return to the campus where I 'weathered' 2 years of an intense full time MBA Program at the Australian Graduate School of Management, UNSW between 1988-1990.

I have given this talk in four venues prior to this and telling aspiring students that the current situation in our industry is dire does not get easier. However, I am pleased that I still do connect with the students sufficiently so that they can understand the message. That it is still a good industry to be in, and that they should hang in there 'Till the Sun Shines Again'. Which it will. Predicting the timing is always the difficulty but the underlying fundamentals will shift in the direction which will bring in rewarding work, as it has in the past downturns.

To conclude, let me quote Edbert Chung who has permitted me to do so on what he thought of my talk:

"Hi Bala

Thank you again for coming in to talk to our students. I had the chance to speak to some people who attended and the feedback from the talk was very positive; they liked your honest insight and appreciated how you shared your personal experiences with downturns. I also, in particular, enjoyed your poem which brought to light a very important issue; there isn't enough poetry that is about geology!"

Kind Regards

Edbert Chung, Student Ambassador | UNSW Faculty of Engineering