Though they share parents, a birthday and are graduating in the same university cohort, these twin sisters couldn't be any more different.
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Twenty-two-year-old Victoria Bush graduated from Chares Sturt University on Tuesday after successfully completing a Bachelor in Marketing.
But there will be more celebrations on Wednesday as Victoria watches her twin sister, Helena, graduate from a Bachelor in Medical Radiation Science.
"People never believe us when we tell them we're twins," Victoria said. "We've always been complete opposites to one another, but it's so nice to be graduating together."
"Helena was always into the sciences, while I was much more focused on the humanities, so we never felt like we had to compete against one another during our studies."
The Wagga-born twins separated while undertaking their degrees, with Victoria attending CSU in Albury while Helena remained in Wagga.
Their father, Tony Bush, who works at CSU in the School of Management and Marketing said he was thrilled to watch both his daughters graduate together.
“It didn’t surprise me they chose different paths, being so different, but I’m so proud of both of them,” he said.
The twins’ dramatic contrast to one another isn’t just obvious through the stark difference in their choice of degrees, but also in the radically different ways in which they approached their studies.
“I’m a bit of a stress-head,” Helena admitted. “I like to plan everything out and hand it in early, where as Victoria just somehow does everything last minute.”
After many years of study the twins are excited to take the next step and begin their lives after university.
“I can’t wait to step up onto the stage tomorrow and be finally finished,” Helena said.
“It will just be such a relief not to have to worry about studying, exams and assignments.”
Victoria will head down to Melbourne, where she will work as a publicity assistant for Tennis Australia during the Australian Open, while Helena will return to her job in Canberra with an imaging group.
Despite their differences and the fights they had growing up, the girls said they were proud to be graduating together and that their now-strong connection helped motivate them to complete their degrees.
“Even though we clashed a bit when we were younger, we still have a great bond,” Victoria said. “We’re the same age, we have the same friendship group and I guess to an extent we both pushed each other to graduate.”
“We gave each other helpful competition, which motivated us to keep going when things got hard.”