Entering year 12, I set myself two goals:
1) Achieve a more than respectable ATAR result, and;
2) Strongly pursue my soccer career
For me the second goal took precedence over the first. For this reason, rather than taking five subjects (or even six) I chose four. I suppose I wanted to have greater focus on my soccer than schooling. I viewed VCE as important but to some extent, a distraction from my pathway into professional soccer.
However, in my first week I realised that my VCE subjects weren’t a distraction at all. In particular, Physical Education (my favourite and best subject) was the theoretical side of my passion.
Throughout the year I came to enjoy the subject more and more going to numerous lectures and presentations by external companies to gain different perspectives on the subject matter.
I ended up topping my year level for SAC marks and aced PE. I also made the senior side at Middle Park SC, capping a successful year for me!
In this blog I want to let you in on a few of the things I learnt in my VCE year as I balanced my sporting and academic expectations.
#1 Follow your Passion
It is quite simple that if you do what you love, you’ll be intrinsically motivated to succeed. Soccer provided me with an outlet to my school studies and enabled me to take my mind off school work. My passion was both PE and soccer. When you can make the theoretical links back to your own sporting life, you really do understand what/why things happen. I suppose the kicker in here was my work/life balance or study/life balance was really well maintained through my soccer.
Hindsight has showed me this is really important, often overlooked by students as trivial- I stumbled upon this by accident. Study smart, not just hard and quality over quantity!
#2 Sleep
This essentially is the most important aspect to year 12. Psychology students can relate to this and understand the importance of sleep for memory consolidation and learning. I aimed to get at least 8-9 hours of sleep every night. On the night before a sac, I would always make sure I get even more sleep. I found that a good nights’ sleep pays off. I was always mentally alert and avoided using caffeine based drinks at all costs.
#3 Enjoy it!
Since it is your last year of school, give it all you’ve got. Say to yourself, I want to have no regrets. Enjoy being surrounded be peers and teachers that are willing to sacrifice their time to assist you. See it as your final year where you can truly show who you are and what you want to be remembered for.
You can find Lucas’s PE notes at https://notexchange.com.au/vendor/lokzo/
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