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Friday, March 29, 2024

Class of 2021: Sam Harding

The last couple of years of school are exciting and challenging at the best of times – and the class of 2021 had to deal with the pandemic and the move to online learning.

In this series of profiles, Canberra Daily speaks to class of 2021 graduates who excelled despite the challenges presented by the pandemic.

“It’s been a tumultuous two years,” says ex-Canberra College student Sam Harding, “so it’s good to come out the other side of it.

“It’s quite rewarding to graduate in a pandemic, because you know you’ve made it through!”

Sam graduated with an ATAR of 96.9, and received an early offer to study strategic communications at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Sam didn’t expect such a good result. “I was hoping for a pretty pleasing result, [but] it was a pleasant surprise when I opened up the BSSS [ACT Board of Senior Secondary Studies] website.”

UTS offers internships; afterwards, Sam hopes to go into the public relations stream, whether in the public service or an NGO, or even start his own company.

“It’s a pretty broad degree, and opens up a variety of career opportunities,” he said. “It seemed to fit me perfectly. I like to talk; I like to build positive relationships with my peers.”

And friendships and peer support were vital for Sam and his classmates during the last two years. They kept in touch a lot online, and were glad when the Chief Minister announced they could go for a picnic.

“It’s very easy to just get stuck into the school grind, especially when you’re in your bedroom, where you’re studying,” Sam said. “It’s too easy to go down the rabbit hole of just school and no fun, so you’ve got to keep that balance. And that’s what my friends and I tried to do a lot, to maintain a balance between school and school life, even though we were at home the whole time.”

But they were able to hold the graduation ceremony (in two separate sessions) and their formal at the start of December.

“We were pretty lucky in that regard,” Sam said. “At that stage, omicron was just around the corner, so we were able to have a formal with no masks. It was great seeing my peers and teachers dressed up, and in person, all together.”

Canberra College handled the crisis well, he thought, providing a video conference course and online learning. “We had a very good system to deal with the uncertain circumstances of the last two years.”

His supportive family helped him get through, too. “It was good to spend some time at home with the family!”

At the moment, he is travelling around NSW with his girlfriend. “That was our celebration – getting to escape into the country!”

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