An Interview with Joel Tito
Joel Tito is a sixth year Arts / Law / Diploma of Modern Languages (Japanese) student at the University of Melbourne. He is currently on exchange to Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo on a Prime Minister’s Asia Endeavour Award and is scheduled to return to Melbourne in April 2011 to complete his final year of study. He is a Sagittarius and has brown eyes, which he used to describe as hazel because it sounded better. Nowadays Joel just tells the truth.
Joel attended Melbourne High School, where he was heavily involved in the school’s extra-curricular and leadership program. He spent 2002 in Gifu, Japan, studying for a year at a Japanese high school and learning to shoot traditional arrows as a member of the school’s Kyudo (Japanese Archery) club. He has since forgotten how to shoot traditional arrows but still has his uniform, which he occasionally wears around the house on cold days.
After graduating from Melbourne High School in 2004 Joel commenced his studies at the University of Melbourne, where he is completing a Bachelor of Arts (undertaking a double major in Political Science and Philosophy) concurrently with a Bachelor of Laws and a Diploma of Modern Languages (Japanese). He cites his interest in the way legal systems are capable of both reflecting and altering socio-political structures as his motivation for pursuing this path. His studies in philosophy have focused on classical and non-classical logic systems, which he believes has complemented his other academic interests by augmenting his ability to analyse and understand problems from a theoretical perspective.
Joel has been involved in a number of activities outside of his studies. He volunteered for the North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency while umpiring for the Northern Territory Australian Football League in 2006 and has since spent time with the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and Victorian Legal Aid. He has also worked two snow seasons in Japan – once in a small town that was famous for its lavender and once in an Ice Village that was famous for its ice. On top of this, he has been involved in comedy for some time, founding the comedy troupe ‘Vigilantelope’ after performing for a number of years in University law revues. As part of Vigilantelope, Joel has performed in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Melbourne Fringe Festival, and World’s Funniest Island Festival, as well as appearing as a dancer on Channel Seven’s ‘The White Room’ before it was cut after two episodes for not being very good. The group has received a number of comedy awards and nominations, including the Melbourne Fringe Auspicious Arts Award, and an Australia Council for the Arts Grant for Hothouse Theatre’s ‘A Month in the Country’ Program, as well as being nominated for the prestigious Golden Gibbo award for Best Independent Comedy in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
While Joel is not yet firmly committed to a particular future trajectory, he feels a strong sense of obligation to utilise the privilege of his educational opportunities to contribute to the community. In the immediate short term, this means getting admitted as a practising lawyer in Victoria and hopefully undertaking postgraduate studies in either Philosophy or Law. Joel is also keen to keep up his involvement in comedy and plans to continue writing and performing.
The Boston Consulting Group Undergraduate Scholarship will allow Joel to continue to pursue his interest in comedy as well as provide him with the financial support to hopefully undertake another stint in the Top End. He is honoured to be associated with BCG, particularly given their focus on supporting projects in Aboriginal communities and their concern with assisting community development in Australia’s far north.