Name: Brendan De Silva
ATAR: 99.75 (joined Talent in year 9 in 2018)
School: St Aloysius College
Now you have finished the HSC, what is your number 1 tip for students?
My number one study tip would probably be to break up your time studying into smaller sessions, because whilst it’s possible to study for multiple hours on end, it’ll be easier to retain information if you take small breaks.
What did you gain out of tutoring and how would you describe your experience at Talent?
My main focus for attending Talent 100 was to simultaneously get ahead with my learning, and also improve on any gaps in my study. The main way I achieved this was by using Talent’s many practise papers in tandem with the weekly lessons.
I would describe the learning environment at Talent 100 as a friendly and community-focused one, and because of this, I would consider the best part to be the sustained enthusiasm of the Talent-100 mentors.
Having an entire term’s worth of notes bound together in one book made revision for my assessment tasks significantly easier, especially in the sciences as each Talent book carefully traced the HSC syllabus. Tutorials also really helped me gain extra assistance on particular topics or concepts that I found difficult.
Who were your mentors and how did they help you?
Daniel Czapski and Dr Dimitri Lazos. Rather than teaching me how to just memorise formulae, my mentors aimed at providing an understanding of the underlying key ideas and facts of each topic, which was not only a more effective teaching style, but it also made each lesson more engaging. I think the best part about having a younger mentor is that, because they’ve completed their HSC relatively recently, they understand the best method of explaining difficult concepts or ideas to high school students. My mentor was consistently passionate about teaching, and always made each lesson fun and engaging.
What are you planning to study in the future?
After completing high school, I aim to study medicine at either the University of New South Wales or Western Sydney University
How would you describe your Talent experience in a few words?
If I could describe Talent 100 in one word, it would be ‘supportive’.
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Learn more about Brendan’s Year 12 journey with Talent by clicking on the video below:
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