Kevin
Coming to Marden Senior College
17 years after leaving school, I decided to enrol at Marden Senior College to achieve my SACE qualification with the original intention of joining SAPOL; this goal changed very quickly, but at least it started the journey.
Experience at Marden Senior College
My subjects were: Modern History, Legal Studies, Society and Culture, English Communications and Research Project. I was lucky enough to have a solid core of experienced, dedicated teachers.
My journey got off to an auspicious start, as due to illness, I missed one class entirely whilst arriving halfway through another. In addition to this, I was daunted by the workload and my ability to get through after: (a) being a long time out of study; (b) never having been a great student.
Nevertheless, I faced up to the task in front of me and weathered my initial teething problems, through the early formative assessments in each class – that is the good thing about formative assessment, it gives you a gauge of what the requirements of the course are, in order for you and your teacher to rectify the problems before the real business of summative assessment begins.
I made friends and established a good working rapport with my teachers. The demands of SACE were such that I could never really sit back and take it easy as I was always focusing on the next task. This has continued at tertiary level and Marden really did prepare me with the organisational skills and discipline that rewarding study demands.
In the end everything came together and I received a subject award for History and the subject prize for Legal Studies.
Achievements to date
My Stage 2 results qualified me for a place at the University of Adelaide to study a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Law degree (majoring in History, a minor in English, with an additional Politics elective for the former).
Since leaving Marden, there has been a slight adjustment but no overall change in my direction. My original intent was to complete these degrees and do a Grad Dip Ed in teaching at the end.
I made the decision to commence my teaching degree earlier than originally planned and have not regretted it, as I feel that is where my real direction is.
Today and the future
I have nearly finished the requirements for my Arts degree and am into the second year of my teaching qualification. I am unsure about Law at the moment. In the meantime, I am focused on maintaining a good grade average and getting straight down to business upon graduation by securing employment as a teacher.
