By Tyler Wright
Elliot Mcinerney has been revealed as Monbulk College’s 2023 Dux after achieving an ATAR score of 95.
In the results released on Monday 11 December, Elliot excelled in Art Creative Practice, Creative and Digital Media (VCE VET) and English with a study score of 45, 44 and 42 out of 50 respectively.
“I was quite unorganised…I had to register on the day to get my results,” Elliot said.
“I opened it up and it said I got a 95, which I was really happy with.
“I was a bit disappointed with some of the scores, but I was really happy overall with my performance.”
In addition to his top performing subjects, Elliot studied Mathematical Methods and Japanese
He said his art teacher said his visual diary for Art Creative Practice was the “best she’d ever seen”.
“I was consistently getting 90s or so on practice exams, so I was expecting a score around that kind of level [for Art Creative Practice],” Elliot said.
“I was not the ideal student because I didn’t work on my visual diary every day, but I always had dedicated times to work on [it].
“I got into the habit so quickly of writing, annotating really fast.”
For Elliot, who also received the Casey Shield; an award which recognises the extraordinary efforts of a Year 12 student in the federal electorate of Casey, the most important thing throughout Year 12 was routine.
“I made a constant effort to go outside and do study outside of my house because whenever I studied at home I would tend to be distracted unless I had already spent the day studying somewhere else,” he said.
“I would usually get distracted by YouTube or my phone or video games or stuff like that, so I would always make an effort to be in an environment like a library or a park or even just going back to school, even though school isn’t on, where the people around me are all working really hard and that would motivate me.
“Having my teachers there telling me about my progress really motivated me a lot.”
Elliot is planning on deferring university for a year to work on his Japanese language skills and save up through his part time job for a trip to Japan, before studying a Bachelor of Arts at Melbourne University in 2025.
“I really want to work as a tutor during my gap year helping people with their own VCE, especially in language related areas,” he said.
“I was pretty happy with my English score as well, even though it wasn’t the highest; I think I am pretty decent with words.
“I’m immensely intrigued by languages in general and how different things translate to different kind of customs and cultures and traditions that intertwine with each other, that make themselves shown in the words of the language.”
Elliot’s advice to current Year 11 students coming into their final year of secondary school is not to worry too much about scores and grades.
“Even if you don’t get the ATAR that you want, there are millions of other pathways to get into the universities or the courses or the TAFEs that you want to get into,” Elliot said.
“Make the most of your time in Year 12, because it’s really important to balance not only your school life but your social life and your family life because it’s going to be the last time that you see these friends that you’ve made over the past six, maybe even 13 years.”
“I made some of the best friends in my life around Year 10 or so at Monbulk, some really nice people that I hope I will stay in contact with for the rest of my life.”
