Buckled down and accelerated up

But the aspiring and driven business student knew at the beginning of this year it was time to buckle down and start making her dreams come true, sacrificing what she needed to keep her eye firmly fixed on her goal.

After attending a Deakin University open day last year, she stumbled upon the uni’s Accelerate program; a program that allows accepted students to complete a couple of units of their chosen chosen course while still studying their VCE.

She applied and, early this year, was accepted to fast-track management and marketing units towards her degree — whether that be for Business or Commerce, she is yet to decide.

Still juggling an after-school-hours job at a supermarket, Chiara dropped all her sporting commitments to dive into her studies, which required attending online seminars at night and completing in-depth assignments in her own time.

“It’s definitely been challenging; especially at the start when I had to learn how to do all the referencing, the things we don’t do in high school,” Chiara said.

“The assignments were very time-consuming, but it’s been good, I’ve done very well in it as well.”

Allowance was made at St Anne’s for Chiara to have an extra allocated study period for the course units as they took the place of another subject.

The studies also go towards her ATAR score, but because they can only take the place of a fifth or sixth subject, it forms part of her aggregate score.

Despite the challenges, she now has a headstart when she heads into the tertiary realm of education next year with the teething wrinkles already ironed out.

Completing Deakin University’s Accelerate program doesn’t guarantee her entry into the university, however, it is Chiara’s chosen university.

She hopes to attend its Geelong campus.

“Now it’s two less uni units I have to do towards my degree,” Chiara said, so excited to jump into her future studies, she’s not even considering a gap year at this stage.

While there was added pressure among organising events, writing speeches and hosting assemblies to fulfill her captaincy duties, Chiara said Deakin had been great with support and deadline extensions when needed.

She recommended other students who already had a good idea of what they want to do in the future to apply to fast-track their studies, but only if they knew they could commit to applying themselves.

“You have to be very dedicated,” Chiara said.

“It takes a lot of work, but it’s a good experience and opportunity to do that in Year 12.”

The former St Brendan’s Primary School student has been at St Anne’s since the college opened in 2019.

She entered Year 7 when there were only two year levels enrolled: hers and Foundation.

She said she’d seen the school grow from one building and “a massive pile of dirt” with an oval that was then “just a paddock” and a makeshift downball court using the cracks between the concrete slabs at the front to the bustling and manicured facility it is today.

“It’s been really good to see it grow, not just the students, but the buildings,” Chiara said.

Her favourite memory from her time at St Anne’s has been school camps, in particular this year’s Year 12 well being retreat to Healesville that prepared the intimate cohort of around 50 students for their year ahead.

As far as challenges, she’s seen her fair share, including being somewhat a ‘test dummy’ as part of the first cohort that travelled up the levels of secondary education at the college and adapting to remote learning during COVID-19 times.

Still, she says this year had been her most challenging with the extra studies she took on.

“Just finding a balance of life, work, study this year,” Chiara said.

Her exams are now finished and she is patiently awaiting her ATAR score to arrive at 7am on December 12 and her first university offer two days before Christmas.