He was signed by the Canberra Raiders at the age of 14 and moved to Canberra from Dubbo with his mum at the age of 16 to chase his dream.

But a series of injuries and serious surgeries made him reconsider. At 18, he was facing a crossroads and decided to walk away from football.

"It was a hard decision and it wasn't one that I made lightly," Mr McDougall said.

"When I did make the decision, I decided to step away from footy entirely. At the time, I was only freshly 18 and I just don't know if I had the emotional capacity and intelligence to still be part of the game and not play it."

After working towards a goal for his teenage years, he suddenly didn't know what he wanted to do. It was difficult to process and led to some unhealthy behaviours and relationship problems.

He started a communications degree but dropped out after two years. He worked in education for a while because he liked working with kids but left that too. He quickly ruled out a desk-based job in the public service.

Aged 23, with the support of his now-wife, he enrolled in a psychology undergraduate degree online at Swinburne University. He was also working as a disability support worker.

He went on to complete his honours year at The University of Canberra. His mum was there to watch him graduate at the ceremony on Wednesday.

Like many people who study psychology, Mr McDougall was interested in understanding people, their emotions and their identities - including his own.

"I've sort of been surrounded by mental health issues in my community and my family for my whole life. I've just seen the impact of that and I've experienced mental health issues myself with depression and anxiety and just sort of low mood," he said.

"I just see that as one of the biggest crises moving forward, the mental health crisis."

As more and more people experience distress and psychological disorders at a younger age, the big question will be how to improve the mental health of the next generation of young people, he said.

"It's definitely causing massive issues for those communities and for families and for the economy. There's a huge sort of trickle down effect of that mental health crisis," he said.

His honours research looked at how a mother's role overload - the different life roles that mothers are expected to fill - was related to her anxiety levels.

Mr McDougall is now shifting his research focus to fathers navigating the early days of fatherhood.

His clinical psychology PhD research will look at how fathers could be better prepared for the birth of a child.

As a father of a two-year-old and a four-month-old, he noticed gaps in maternity care when it comes to preparing fathers for the life-changing event of childbirth.

"Fathers are going into birth events ... not prepared, maybe not aware of what's going to happen fully, not having practiced any sort of decision-making skills that might be required of them during any complications," Mr McDougall said.

The Barkindji man was awarded the Tom Calma Medal, which goes to an Indigenous student who has excelled in their studies and made a contribution to the community.

Mr McDougall said it was a great honour to top off a very big year.

"It's just felt like a really nice culmination of all this effort and sacrifice, I suppose, that was made over the last four years," he said.