Mitchell Sayer is on the home straight for finishing high school after completing his first HSC exam.
Well, sort of.
The Kogarah High School Year 12 student completed his first HSC exam today – one of two English exams he is sitting this week.
Despite almost being finished high school, Mitchell said he had high hopes of returning to the classroom one day as a high school teacher.
“I’m so glad that it is all coming to an end,” he said. “But next year I’m studying at the University of Wollongong and I would like to become a high school teacher.”
The English exam today marked the start of the HSC examination period for schools across NSW.
The HSC examination period will run until Tuesday, November 7 – finishing with the drama exam – before results are sent out on December 14.
Mitchell, 17, said his first exam went well despite some butterflies in his stomach before sitting the exam.
“I thought I was going to throw up,” he said. “But it actually went better than I thought it would. I think I was quite lucky.”
Mitchell said the sheer amount of writing was intimidating and he wrote about five pages per section in his English exam, of which there were three sections.
“I think the hardest section was probably the unseen text, because you have not been exposed to the texts and you only have a bit of time to read through them all,” he said. “The poem was quite short which I was happy about and you also have a novel extract and a non-fiction extract to respond to.”
The Sans Souci resident said he had a real passion for languages and would like to become an English or Japanese teacher in the future.
He said when he was younger he fell in love with learning languages. “They just seem to click,” he said.
Mitchell also sits his Japanese exam this week.
More than 70,000 students are sitting HSC exams this year and more than 5500 markers will work across NSW in nine marking centres and from home after the exams.
The most popular elective subjects this year include mathematics, biology and business studies, while Japanese is the most popular language followed by French.
Most students who will finish their HSC this year started their schooling back in 2005.