There’s no doubt that the Year 12 journey can easily turn out to be overwhelming — that was initially the case for Hamish!
It’s challenging to balance your studies alongside your extracurricular commitments and life outside of school, as well as having to think about the future.
But that’s where the Pathfinder Program comes in! We discuss with Pathfinder Alumni, Hamish, how he got through Year 12 and how the program gave him the tools to reach his ATAR goal and also enjoy the ride along the way.
There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s jump into it!
Hamish’s Year 12 Results
Did Hamish Feel Overwhelmed by Year 12?
How Hamish Balanced His Commitments
What Hamish Learnt From His Pathfinder Mentor
Hamish’s Year 12 Prioritisation Process
Hamish’s Biggest Takeaways From His Pathfinder Program
Hamish’s Year 12 Results
Hamish was more of a Humanities person and did 10 units for the HSC: Legal Studies, Economics, Business Studies, Advanced English and Standard Maths.
At the start of the year, Hamish set out to achieve the goal of studying Law and possibly pairing his degree with Commerce or Economics.
“I knew my target would have to be around that 95 ballpark or up in order to study that, do my degree, and then hopefully, practice law,” he tells us.
Hamish successfully reached his goal and scored an ATAR of 95.55!
He was offered a place at UNSW to study a double degree in Law and Commerce.
Did Hamish Feel Overwhelmed by Year 12?
Every Year 12 student gets overwhelmed at some point during the HSC.
“I knew I wanted to do well at the end of the year, and it all kind of hit me in the sense that it’s like I was trying to do as much work as I could, because I thought that’s what I have to do to get these big results,” Hamish says.
Check out Oliver’s five steps to going from a Band 1 to Band 5 in HSC Advanced Maths here!
Every student has their own battles — whether that’s the pressure of doing well academically, balancing exercise and everything you need to do after school like sport, part-time work and other activities.
Hamish, at first, was no different!
During Year 12, Hamish juggled his school work with four other commitments: his school captain responsibilities, his part-time job on Saturday mornings, cricket training 2-4 times a week and cricket games on the weekend.
“With that comes the sense of getting really overwhelmed with just this huge plate of all this work that you’re going to do, these responsibilities, these extra commitments, and it just hits you,” he reflects.
How Hamish Balanced His Commitments
For Hamish, it all came down to one magic word: scheduling.
“It’s the most important thing you can do as a senior student,” he tells us. Throughout Year 12, Hamish locked in his schedule from Monday to Sunday, 7am till 9pm — during those hours, he knew exactly what he was doing and when he was doing it.
“It was knowing when it was going to get done, which then alleviates the stress. Because if you don’t have a schedule, you think you have this plate of work and think, am I going to get through this?,” he says.
Every Sunday afternoon, Hamish planned his week ahead. He wrote a huge to-do list of all the tasks he had to complete and the responsibilities he had for the week ahead. On Google Docs, he planned each day from 7am to 9pm, including what was coming up — no nasty surprises!
Check out our 10-step guide to creating an effective study plan here!
On top of ensuring that he was super organised, scheduling also made him confident in achieving his goals.
“Being able to see it in like an action when it’s going to get done is fantastic and then it only comes down to trusting yourself that you’re gonna get it done,” he says.
What Hamish Learnt From His Pathfinder Mentor
Hamish mentions how fantastic his mentor, Winnie, was throughout his Pathfinder program. Winnie helped him to hone in the mindset that, both mentally and academically, Year 12 is not a sprint, but a marathon!
Importantly, Winnie helped him learn the importance of scheduling in breaks to re-energise.
There are more benefits to taking breaks than many students often appreciate. He says, “you just feel more energised, you feel more calm and because of that, you can generally do your work quicker and better.”
Want to know how long and how many breaks you should take? Check out our guide here!
Taking breaks encompass various activities, here are some of our favourites:
- A walk around the block
- Going to the gym
- Meeting up with friends
- Watching your comfort show or movie
- Taking a nap
Whatever your pick, make sure your study break completely detaches you from thinking about studying.
There’s no need to harbour any feelings of guilt when taking breaks! Instead, ensure that once you sit back down to study, you put your 100% on the task.
Hamish’s Year 12 Prioritisation Process
It’s easy to lose track of what’s most important when there’s so much happening.
For Hamish, who had many commitments piled on top of studying for the HSC, this meant reminding himself what he wanted to achieve at the end of Year 12 — that was an ATAR of 95 or above.
He quickly realised that schoolwork had to be his main priority if he wanted to achieve his ATAR goal. He pushed through with his academic goals, even if that meant cutting back on other commitments like participating in one less cricket training a week.
“You want to be able to look back and go, I wanted that goal and I did it and I did everything I could to achieve it,” Hamish says.
Essentially, it’s about loosening up your schedule to take bigger steps forward. You don’t need to go cold turkey on your other commitments and become a hermit — but, executing that change of spending less time in cricket training boosted Hamish’s energy in Year 12.
Is HSC Chemistry one of the subjects you want to improve in this year? Check out our top Chemistry study tips to get ahead!
Hamish’s Biggest Takeaways From His Pathfinder Program
Biggest Takeaway From Working with Winnie
For Hamish, there were two big takeaways.
#1: Mindset
“[Winnie] would sit down and go, what can you control in all of this is your work ethic, the work that you’re doing, and then how consistently you’re doing it.” Hamish tells us.
Instead of worrying about what would be in the exam, all Hamish could do was prepare to the best of his ability.
For him, it was freeing to acknowledge “whatever happens from that happens in the end and you can’t control it.”
#2: Taking the Time to Re-energise
Before Hamish started working with Winnie, he wasn’t taking any time to relax and re-energise which was taking a toll on his body.
“After an exam block, I would crash, I’d be sick for about two weeks, like physically sick because I was so exhausted, I barely rested, I hadn’t stopped working,” he says.
After starting his sessions with Winnie, Hamish quickly realised that he couldn’t do that for the entire year because it was not sustainable. A 20 minute break doing some boxing or skipping worked better than cramming through more work.
The great thing was that Winnie would check up with Hamish in the sessions to see what was working, what wasn’t and then they would make the necessary changes.
“It was really good having her suggestions and point of view on that, so I was never burning out and I’ve not burned out since,” Hamish says.
Best Pathfinder Workshop
Hamish found that the Pre-Trials workshop motivated him exponentially!
“Afterwards I went outside, I put my earphones in, I was boxing and was like alright, we got this — here we go, it’s ten weeks away, we’re gonna be so fired up for it,” he says.
During the Pre-Trials session, Hamish and the other workshop students scheduled their 10-week plans together so everybody knew when they were going to get their different tasks/study done.
Hamish found learning about the different study strategies, such the Traffic Light system really helpful to his overall confidence before the exams.
“That made me go great, implement these [strategies], I’m going to nail this and then it was also just getting comfortable with the fact that trials were coming up and I wasn’t dreading it,” Hamish says.
Favourite Part about the Career Intensives
What Hamish really enjoyed was developing different skills which he will use for life: how to ace your interviews, how to write cover letters and resumes.
“When I leave Year 12, I’m gonna have to go seek out a job, or if you’re doing something like entrepreneurship, you’re gonna have to seek out other people, you’re gonna need these skills,” Hamish says.
‘“One of the things I loved was building the personal branding, learning the skills that you’re going to need, if you’re trying to sell yourself to someone else: What are you going to say to them? How are you going to influence them?,” Hamish tells us.
Hamish says that learning how to convince someone to work with you or if you want to seek out their advice, was something invaluable in the Career Intensives.
Apart from that, he also appreciated how he learnt about how to properly sort UAC preferences during the program!
Hamish on Finding a Personal Project
As part of the Pathfinder Program, students are encouraged to start a personal project.
Not only is starting a personal project great for when it comes to applying to universities or when you apply for a job, but it can also be a lot of fun and lead to new opportunities.
Since Hamish was passionate about law and finance, he educated himself on how to use Youtube and started his Youtube channel! On his channel, ‘Bullpen Finance‘, Hamish creates all kinds of videos to do with financial and legal literacy!
“I want to help people with their financial literacy, building their knowledge with it, but I also love law, and I love learning about it,” Hamish says.
It was during the Year 12 Trials period when Hamish really began working on it.
“I would organise to go and meet lawyers or other experts, just to have an interview with them, and then you know, ask a few questions, turn them into little scripts about what I’ve learned from it,” he says.
Hamish thinks everyone should start a personal project — not only is it a lot of fun, but you also grow a lot through the opportunities you get along the way.
“You will get these extra opportunities that you would not have gotten if you decide I’m not going to do it. It’s so invaluable to have that project because again, it helps with uni and all that but it’s a springboard for when you’re done, like you can you can then leap into something even greater when you finish Year 12,” he tells us.
Favourite Thing about The Pathfinder Program
“I really did enjoy doing all my sessions with Winnie. I really looked forward to them every single time, sitting down, talking to her about different things, because I knew I was going to benefit afterwards,” Hamish says.
His second favourite part was working on the personal project.
“I met really cool people throughout the year doing it and it was just something that I enjoyed,” he says, “and if I didn’t do the program, I would have had none of those things.”
What Would Hamish Have Done Differently?
If there is anything Hamish would have done differently, he would “get clarity at the beginning of year” on what he wanted to achieve.
“Once you know that, essentially all your actions throughout the rest of the year will reflect that,” he says.
Once you have a specific goal, a tangible goal, that will motivate you to keep going when it gets challenging!
“I’m very grateful that I did the overall program because I met Winnie, got along really well with her, had lots of fantastic sessions and now I’ve got my project set up,” he adds on a final note.
Check out how Kira balanced her major works in Year 12 and got a 95 ATAR here!
There you go!
Now, you’ve got a better understanding of how beneficial the Pathfinder Program is and what you can expect!
It’s not only about learning study strategies and techniques but also setting you up for the future and focusing on how to balance Year 12 — as well as enjoy the journey along the way!
And that’s it — acing Year 12 has never been easier!
Check out more of our HSC resources here:
- How James Went From a Band 2 to a Band 6 in HSC Maths Advanced
- The Ultimate HSC English Literary Techniques Cheat Sheet
- How to Write a Study Checklist for HSC Standard Maths Using the Syllabus
- How to Effectively Memorise Quotes for HSC English
- How to Write a Band 6 Discursive Writing Piece for HSC English Module C
Looking for some extra help with your studies?
We pride ourselves on our inspirational coaches and mentors!
We offer tutoring and mentoring for Years K-12 in a variety of subjects, with personalised lessons conducted one-on-one in your home or at one of our state of the art campuses in Hornsby or the Hills (particularly if you’re looking for Rouse Hill tutoring)!
To find out more and get started with an inspirational tutor and mentor get in touch today!
Give us a ring on 1300 267 888, email us at [email protected] or check us out on TikTok!
Tanna Nankivell is a Senior Content Writer at Art of Smart Education and is currently in Germany completing a year of study for her double degree in Communications (Journalism) and Bachelor of Arts (International Studies). She has had articles published on Central News – the UTS Journalism Lab and wrote a feature piece for Time Out Sydney during her internship. Tanna has a love for travel and the great outdoors, you’ll either find her on the snowfields or in the ocean, teaching aqua aerobics or creating short films.
