How shunned TikTok Sydney University open day visitor Fahad Khan overcame snobbery to study medicine

A student shunned by selective private school snobs at a university Open Day purely because of his zip code and modest education has revealed how he overcame his disadvantage to study medicine.

In a powerful TikTok, Fahad Khan described in detail how he was excluded by his peers when he attended the University of Sydney in 2016 for not attending a private or selective school.

Mr Khan, 23, attended Arthur Phillip High School in Parramatta, western Sydney, and admits it was a school of ‘not the best reputation’.

“We’ve had cases where a student has shot at a police station,” Mr Khan said.

“It’s a real experience when you go there — it’s definitely not like Sydney Boys Grammar or Sydney Girls, or James Ruse.”

Out of 300 students in Mr Khan’s 12th grade, he said only about 50 passed the exam to enter university.

He and his two brothers and a sister grew up in a single-parent family.

“We came from very humble backgrounds, we’ve lived in government housing pretty much most of my life, we only got out of it a year or two ago,” he said.

‘Four children and a single mother – originally from Pakistan, but all the children were born here.’

He thanks a family doctor for inspiring his mother, Sahiba, to attend college.

“Before that, none of my family went to college or hardly anyone, so it was a bit of a jump,” he said.

“My GP really helped our family and we went through a lot of hardships and she basically influenced mother to go to university.

“The inspiration was to do something that people don’t believe you can do.

“In my mother’s day, the belief was that we couldn’t go to college, but once I saw that, I thought college was an option, then I thought becoming a doctor was an option.”

Mr Khan gave these words of advice to those who doubted whether they could study in the university.

“You can definitely make your place in college if it’s not there for you already,” he said.

“In college I felt like a fish in water because most of the people in my school didn’t go on to higher education, but I grabbed every opportunity there was and ran with them.

“Once you’ve made a place for yourself, make sure you go back and help people from a similar background.

“Once you’ve taken the elevator up, make sure you send it back down to those who need it, like you did.

“I think just seeing that with our mom really inspired me and my siblings.”

Mr Khan’s eldest brother has a master’s degree, his other brother has a university degree and his younger sister is studying at the University of Melbourne.

After overcoming obstacles in pursuing his own dream, Mr Khan now devotes himself to helping others in similar circumstances.

While he offers paid tutoring In order to give people medical courses, Mr Khan says he has given away nearly $10,000 in free tutoring to people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

He said one of those he tutored came from a single mother like himself and had recently completed medical training.

“When my followers message me with financial or other problems, I do my best to help them where I can,” he said.

Mr Khan hopes that when fully qualified he will be able to provide healthcare to underserved communities.

“I definitely want to do indigenous health because I have experience in that,” he said.

“I’ve always had a passion for helping underprivileged communities and the indigenous community is one of the most underprivileged communities, so that’s definitely on the agenda.”

Mr. Zhan said that since the clip was posted on TikTok, he has been getting private messages from others who have had similar experiences.

“They said, ‘Thank you for posting that video because I thought I was strange,'” Mr. Zhan said.

“They thought maybe people treated them that way because there was something inherently wrong with them.

“But they told me ‘after I read the comments I thought this was a legitimate thing and maybe (they were shunned) just because I’m not from the dominant class and area of ​​the university’.”

Mr Zhan, who was then 17 years old in Year 12, says that during an information session on medical studies at the University of Sydney, they were asked which secondary school they attended.

All those who went to a private and selective school, that was everyone but him, gathered to talk to the university medical students across the room.

When Mr. Zhan asked to be admitted, he was told that another medical student would be coming for him to interact with, which did not happen.

A spokesman for the University of Sydney said Mr Khan’s story was “staggering”.

“We value diversity and helping talented students realize their potential, regardless of their social, cultural or financial circumstances,” said a spokesperson.

“We are stunned by the experience Fahad Khan describes.

“We work hard to ensure that everyone is accepted and given equal opportunities on our campuses.

“But we also know that we need to do more to attract, support and retain students who have traditionally been underrepresented and understaffed in higher education.”

Mr Khan said he couldn’t say whether things had improved at the University of Sydney in terms of wider adoption, but he had heard from friends that it is ‘a little better’.

Finally, Mr Khan went on to the University of NSW, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, where he completed a degree in neuroscience.

He is now in his third year of medicine at the University of Western Sydney.

Mr Khan said the University of NSW was not nearly as unwelcome as the University of Sydney, but he still felt ‘like a fish in water’ there at times.

He said that sometimes people tried a little too hard, like a classmate who said how much ‘she loved Muslims because I’m Muslim’.

On another occasion, he heard that he had a distinctive regional accent.

“I was in class and someone was yelling across the room, ‘Who’s that person from Western Sydney?’” Mr Khan said.

Mr Khan began to look around and wonder who the person was and how they were identified.

“They said (to me) ‘we can hear your western Sydney accent’ and I said ‘is there a western Sydney accent?’” Mr Khan said.

At first, Mr Khan felt so out of place that he started messaging a friend to either come to his university or move to Western Sydney “because I didn’t feel like I was at home at UNSW,” he said. he.

“I finally found a bunch of friends and it turned out to be one of the best experiences of my life,” Mr Khan said of his time at UNSW.