"How to cruise through the HSC with a state of ignorance" A story by Fergus

[Fergus6748]

So this is my first entry into my brand spanking new HSC Journey Journal '"How to cruise through the HSC with a state of ignorance" A story by Fergus O'Sullivan'. It's gonna be great to have a place to vent about the HSC and describe my ups and downs throughout the HSC to a willing and sympathetic audience. Today so far has been pretty good. However, I'll start with who I am and what I'm studying. Currently, I'm in year 12 at Sydney Secondary College Blackwattle Bay Campus studying Chemistry, Physics, Economics, Advanced English, Mathematics and Maths Extension 1, and I can honestly say I am loving it. So far, Year 12 has been the best year of my life, everyone who tells you this were right all along. It's been a long ride from Kindergarden to now and there have been many challenges that I've had to overcome these past 12 years and there will be many more that I will have to overcome in the rest of this year, but I guess the best thing I can do is perservere. And so ends my first entry into this journal through the HSC, thank you to those who read my ramblings and I'll see you in the next one!! 

[Joseph41]

So this is my first entry into my brand spanking new HSC Journey Journal '"How to cruise through the HSC with a state of ignorance" A story by Fergus O'Sullivan'. It's gonna be great to have a place to vent about the HSC and describe my ups and downs throughout the HSC to a willing and sympathetic audience. Today so far has been pretty good. However, I'll start with who I am and what I'm studying. Currently, I'm in year 12 at Sydney Secondary College Blackwattle Bay Campus studying Chemistry, Physics, Economics, Advanced English, Mathematics and Maths Extension 1, and I can honestly say I am loving it. So far, Year 12 has been the best year of my life, everyone who tells you this were right all along. It's been a long ride from Kindergarden to now and there have been many challenges that I've had to overcome these past 12 years and there will be many more that I will have to overcome in the rest of this year, but I guess the best thing I can do is perservere. And so ends my first entry into this journal through the HSC, thank you to those who read my ramblings and I'll see you in the next one!! 

Hey Fergus,

Welcome to ATAR Notes!

Loving the positivity and the start to this journal. Looking forward to what your next "rambling" (your words - not mine ).

[Mada438]

So this is my first entry into my brand spanking new HSC Journey Journal '"How to cruise through the HSC with a state of ignorance" A story by Fergus O'Sullivan'. It's gonna be great to have a place to vent about the HSC and describe my ups and downs throughout the HSC to a willing and sympathetic audience. Today so far has been pretty good. However, I'll start with who I am and what I'm studying. Currently, I'm in year 12 at Sydney Secondary College Blackwattle Bay Campus studying Chemistry, Physics, Economics, Advanced English, Mathematics and Maths Extension 1, and I can honestly say I am loving it. So far, Year 12 has been the best year of my life, everyone who tells you this were right all along. It's been a long ride from Kindergarden to now and there have been many challenges that I've had to overcome these past 12 years and there will be many more that I will have to overcome in the rest of this year, but I guess the best thing I can do is perservere. And so ends my first entry into this journal through the HSC, thank you to those who read my ramblings and I'll see you in the next one!! 

Welcome to the forums fergus! 
Wow that sounds like an interesting mix of subjects. I take it you enjoy maths orientated subjects?

Keen to see you generate some positive vibes here on this journal 

[fantasticbeasts3]

Hi Fergus,

Welcome to the forums! So good to see you enjoying year 12 - it can be pretty stressful, but it is a good year. Is there anything in particular you're looking forward to this year?

All the best!

[Fergus6748]

Hey Fergus,

Welcome to ATAR Notes!

Loving the positivity and the start to this journal. Looking forward to what your next "rambling" (your words - not mine ).

Thanks for the warm welcome. I sure will be posting as much as I can!! 

[Fergus6748]

Welcome to the forums fergus! 
Wow that sounds like an interesting mix of subjects. I take it you enjoy maths orientated subjects?

Keen to see you generate some positive vibes here on this journal 

Yeah, I'm a HUGE fan fo STEM and Science!!! It's been my passion since year 7 and I would like to pursue it as a career. I used to also take Biology but I decided to drop half way through the first term of year 12 as it was becoming a huge workload and I needed to drop something. It was actually a bit of a challenge to drop, it was between that and Physics and ultimately Physics prevailed. I love Biology, it's just that since I needed to drop a subject and I wanted to keep Economics and Maths, it was the best choice. That and it was a good study line!! It was a relief when I dropped it though and defintely worth it in the end. Suffice to say I love the systematic and informative nature of STEM and I found it easy to follow and engage with it. My biggest issue is English.  Which I found pretty difficult to prepare for as it's not as orientated as my other subjects but it's getting better. Just by trying harder to engage, ask questions, and listen has helped a lot!!!

Thanks for the warm welcome and all the best.

[Fergus6748]

Hi Fergus,

Welcome to the forums! So good to see you enjoying year 12 - it can be pretty stressful, but it is a good year. Is there anything in particular you're looking forward to this year?

All the best!

I can defintely vouch for the stress, my first term of year 12 was a bit rocky. I did well in some of my subjects but in others not so well. The holidays was what really changed my perspective, during the second half of the summer holidays I attended the National Youth Science Forum. It's a two week long camp that was the best experience of my life!! It reflect on a lot of things; what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, what did I want to achieve during my HSC year, and life in general. It had a hugely transformative impact on me which my positivity and enfluasism about school is a by-product of. It's made my studies, even English, more enjoyable and it has made me a more confident and happier person. To answer the question, the part of the HSC year that excites me the most is the opportunities that I will be able to experience on my journey. The friends I'll make, the memories I'll create and the experiences I'll have make me excited and happy to be in Year 12 doing the HSC and make me excited to look toward my future. I know that sounds super cheesy but it can't be helped because its true. If you hold yourself back and don't express yourself than you only miss out on the opportunities that life pushes your way.

Thanks for the warm welcome to the forum and all the best.

[Fergus6748]

Hey all, I haven't posted in this for a long while. Currently in the middle of term, nearing my mid-course exams. It's that time of term where you become really weary of studying and working and it begins to become a real drag on you. Frustratingly, I discovered that despite having two weeks for our exams, all of mine (minus Extension Maths) are in the first four days. Argh!! Not to mention that I was supposed to go hiking on the Easter holidays two days before my exams start, now i'm not too sure about going. Still despite being very trying, school can be very enlightening and enjoyable often, and it feels amazing when you finally get that physics concept or that annoying maths question down to pats!! Yay! Looking forward (already) for the exams and holidays!! Till next time.

[Fergus6748]

Hey guys, it's been a while, but I'm gonna try and pick this back up again. So where to begin? Since I last posted yonks ago, I've gone through two rounds of assessments and I'm nearing the end of the year with trials just around the corner and the HSC exams over the hill, but it's been a good ride. I've since gone a bunch of different strategies and techniques to see what I can do to improve my studies and motivation and just my life in general. The lastest of which is that I've started writing a journal, not this one but an actual paper notebook journal journal, in the hopes that a paperback journal that I will carry aorund with me might motivate me to stick to it for much longer. The inspiration of this came from a story my mate told me about how his dad started writing journals around my age now and didn't stop for about 30 years. he kept it up the whole time and he got to look over his story through the journals. Thought it was a pretty cool idea and I thought I might pick it up. I'll try to maintain both that journal and this one at the very least to the end of the year. Cheers again.

[Fergus6748]

Hi Fergus,

Welcome to the forums! So good to see you enjoying year 12 - it can be pretty stressful, but it is a good year. Is there anything in particular you're looking forward to this year?

All the best!

Yikes it's been a while, so seeing that's it's been a couple months since you asked this question, I will do be my best to oblige. Really this is a good thing, lets me reflect on my thoughts from the start of the year with the new found wisdom that I have gained these past few months. To answer your question, the thing I am most looking forward to this year and am currently looking forward for now, is the new sense of freedom that I and a whole bunch of other people I'm sure as well have gained by moving into our final year. There is much to look forward to in the final year of school. (1) The HSC!!! Woooo!!!, (2) as I go to a college of three campuses, i'm in the senior college consisting of only year 11s and 12s, this has really opened up heaps of opportunity, namely the fact that we get to meet a whole year's worth of fresh faces who will be doing the HSC alongside us. (3) as I said above the freedom is not only restricted to school but life in general, this year I've been able to try new things out and explore new opportunities throughout the past months. I hope that answers your question. I lost track of what I was saying a bit, but thanks for the reply.

[Fergus6748]

Yikes it's been a while, so seeing that's it's been a couple months since you asked this question, I will do be my best to oblige. Really this is a good thing, lets me reflect on my thoughts from the start of the year with the new found wisdom that I have gained these past few months. To answer your question, the thing I am most looking forward to this year and am currently looking forward for now, is the new sense of freedom that I and a whole bunch of other people I'm sure as well have gained by moving into our final year. There is much to look forward to in the final year of school. (1) The HSC!!! Woooo!!!, (2) as I go to a college of three campuses, i'm in the senior college consisting of only year 11s and 12s, this has really opened up heaps of opportunity, namely the fact that we get to meet a whole year's worth of fresh faces who will be doing the HSC alongside us. (3) as I said above the freedom is not only restricted to school but life in general, this year I've been able to try new things out and explore new opportunities throughout the past months. I hope that answers your question. I lost track of what I was saying a bit, but thanks for the reply.

Uh wow, I just realised that I've already replied to that post, sorry about that.

[jamonwindeyer]

Uh wow, I just realised that I've already replied to that post, sorry about that.

The amount of times I've nearly done this would scare you

Great to see you back online, Fergus!

[Fergus6748]

Hey guys, been a few weeks since last post. They've been pretty hectic, already a week in with my Trial exams starting in two weeks  which should be an interesting experience. I like many of my cohort I would assume spent the recent holidays enjoying themselves rather than studying. I spent my first week on a leadership and self development camp for the NYSF Student Staff Leadership Program which was held by Outward Bound Australia. Basically that means that I've been asked to come back to the NYSF program to be a Staffie, which essentially means I will be helping to run one of the sessions on NYSF. It was an awesome and eye opening experience on the leadership course with Outward Bound. The first part of the camp was going over the skills I will need to run session in January but second part was the Expedition. Myself and the other 15/16 people who are in my Staffie team were taken on a four day hike. While my last week of holidays was spent doing everything but studying, which is starting to haunt me currently as I'm currently doing all the work that I put off this weekend. It's actually reallly nice to be back at school and back at the grind, everything picked back up straight where we left it. I think I will leave it here until next time. Cheers.

[Fergus6748]

Creative Writing is going to be the death of my English mark. It's really frustrating to come up with ideas!!! Over a week back into the grind and nothing has changed. All the work that I should have done in the holidays is really biting me in the ass. I am currently just trying push through the workload and get some revision done for my trials coming up in a week and a bit. Aargh!! My trial exam timetable sucks so much!! For some reason the teachers thought to put Physics, Extension 1 Maths, Economics, and Chemistry all clumped together one after the other!! So I'm really loving the faculties right now. Luckily enough that clump of exams is in the second week of exam block so I still have a bit of time to prepare. Something I forget to mention last time was that the English faculty made us sit an assessment period 1 of day 1 for our module C. That was expectingly disappointing to sit. Personally, as I spent the large majority of my holidays away on hikes while the rest was enjoying the illusion of freedom, I did not prepare sufficiently or at least to the level I would have liked. In its favour, the assessment was a real kickstarter for my studying at least, so now the grind is well and truly underway. Cheers.

[Fergus6748]

New day new me, that's how its supposed to go. I've been looking at a lot of stuff recently like for instance the Mental Health First Aid course which looks pretty cool and useful espescially, is that how you spell it? for when I will be on NYSF in January. I was also looking at the Duke of Edinburgh award. I've been really wanting to do it recently but I never completed the bronze award, though I got really close. I managed to complete all the hours and I did the preparation training and actual qualifying journey but I missed out on it when I went to Europe for holiday and missed the practice journey, which was really annoying. I've been looking up alternatives to finish, but otherwise I want to complete the full award but I will most likely just skip the bronze despite the little bit left. Cya