What are the Trailblazer Awards?
The Trailblazer Awards celebrates Year 12 students beyond their ATAR, recognising those who have overcome personal challenges and used their final year of school to positively impact their community.
Our Trailblazers will have the opportunity to network with industry leaders, build their personal brand and profile as a future leader, learn key career skills in our 3-day Pathfinder Accelerator, and so much more!
Find out how Rajiska navigated Year 12 differently throughout 2021!
Introducing: Rajiska Kamalanathan
Category: Science and Technology
School: Macarthur Girls High School
Career Aspiration: Podiatrist
Achievements
- Learnt Tamil
- Elected for multiple school leadership positions
- Developed extensive problem solving skills
What makes Rajiska a Trailblazer?
Rajiska has spent the last two years studying Tamil at her local community language school. It has been a significant achievement in her life, as it has allowed her to reconnect with her culture and better understand who she is and where she comes from. As a result, she has become motivated to help others do the same, wanting to help educate younger generations to reconnect with their culture in a similar way.
Through this experience of learning Tamil, Rajiska has developed an array of highly valuable skills. Her memory and concentration has improved greatly, along with her ability to multitask and be an astute listener. She has also seen her problem solving skills develop and grow. She is now able to easily employ critical thinking and use this mindset to solve complex problems.
Rajiska has a super extensive extra-curricular portfolio. She has been learning traditional classical dance for 15 years and plays multiple instruments, including guitar, violin, piano and veena (a traditional musical instrument originating in India).
Rajiska also participates in various sports, playing cricket, tennis, soccer and badminton! She has also assumed leadership roles within her school community in various capacities, having been an SRC member and Pride leader, as well as being on the Yearbook committee. In addition to all of this, she somehow finds time to help out at her father’s business, having spent more than five years now doing occasional administrative work. We know what you’re thinking — she is a time management pro!
Rajiska faced numerous challenges while completing Year 12. One of the largest obstacles was having to do so as a student who uses English as a second language. Rajiska moved to Australia a few years ago from a non-English speaking country. Navigating language differences has often proved difficult for her, presenting Rajiska with a significant challenge to overcome during Year 12.
On top of this, Rajiska spent her final year of high school caring for a sick family member. So, not only was she splitting her time between being a student, musical prodigy, sporting star and school leader, she was also being a caretaker.
Rajiska hopes to become a Podiatrist in the future.
“Through this job I’m planning to create awareness about lower leg diseases across the world.”
Her ongoing efforts to help others around her and continuously better herself during a very challenging year has landed Rajiska a position in our Top 50 Trailblazers!
The Top 50 Year 12 Trailblazer Awards
The Trailblazer Awards aim to identify and celebrate students who use their final years of school to invest holistically in the skills and experiences that will maximise their own future opportunities and make a contribution to the future of our society.
Our winners for the Year 12 Trailblazer Awards have demonstrated initiative in volunteering for their school or community, have participated in co-curricular activities, and have held leadership positions within their schools.
Learn more about who placed in the Top 50 Year 12 Trailblazers here!
About Art of Smart Education
At Art of Smart Education, we’re an award-winning provider of holistic tutoring and mentoring for students in years K-12. Our mission is to help students answer the difficult question, “What am I going to do with my life when I finish school, and how do I get there?”
We understand that true success involves mastering study, career and leadership skills while maintaining your wellbeing, not just excelling in academics and as a result, over the last decade, we’ve supported over 10,000 students to achieve their best and maximise their options for life after school.
Each year over one million young Australians, parents, and teachers access our guides, videos and resources to navigate the journey through high school.
