It was also CSU’s third annual Student Leadership Conference, drawing Indigenous, non-Indigenous and international students from as far away as Brisbane and Pakistan.

ABC journalist, social commentator and Wiradjuri man Dr Stan Grant Jnr, who is Chair of Indigenous Affairs at CSU, was the keynote speaker, and urged students to prepare for the challenges they would face in an increasingly globalised world.

“It’s a great question … how do we live together and what are the values that underpin that?” he said.

“I believe in a cosmopolitanism – that we find things in common with each other beyond our differences rather than sort of shrink ourselves to these small ideas of identity.

“I'm much more interested in an expansive idea of identity – that I’m not just an Indigenous person, I’m the sum of many parts.”

This year 60 Dubbo College Senior campus students made history as the largest group of Indigenous students ever to sit their Higher School Certificate (HSC) exams – a feat that has drawn national media attention.

Dr Grant said education gave people a chance in life, and “for Indigenous people the same as anyone else, we need to seize that”.

“Education teaches you to ask more questions … and I think that’s what I would say to any Indigenous kid looking for their place in the world: don’t stop asking questions,” he said.

“Don’t just accept that someone tells you who you are, what you are and that’s all you are.

“Being Indigenous is not about being narrowly defined, it’s about being free to express all of yourself and to express yourself as an individual, express yourself as part of an Indigenous community but also part of a wider world and they are really confronting things.

“Sometimes you’re going to find people being very uncomfortable about that, but you owe it to yourself – we all owe it to ourselves – to ask those questions.”