Looking forward to the future

MAGGIE GILBY & JAMES AFFORD, THE GEELONG COLLEGE CO-CAPTAINS

It’s fair to say that despite the unpredictability of 2021, it has been delightful to conclude our school years as a cohort that will forever be remembered for its resilience, determination, and hard work.

This year may not have offered us as many tangible opportunities as we might have expected, but nonetheless, our infrequent time on campus, as much as Microsoft Teams, proved to unite a struggling batch of VCE students. At a time where we are looking to the future, it’s fitting to look back on our school years and the memories we’ve made. Year 7 brought with it a number of unfamiliar faces and overzealous students. Between our Orientation Day, camp, and Boats Day,

we fell into friendships and a close community that persisted to Year 8 and beyond. Many of us stepped out of our comfort zones on the Year 8 Camp and flourished back at school during the Cre8 project. We saw some stand out performances in the Year 8 Production, which rounded out our Middle School experience. A quick transition to Senior School saw us become the youngest students on campus again. Even more of a culture shock was our opportunities to immerse in communities so different to our own, on City Week in Year 9 and (especially) Fulfilling Lives in Year 10. The experiences – locally, interstate, and overseas – were amplified by the group of people around us and are ones that we will no doubt remember well beyond high school. Of course, the latter years of Senior School welcomed an engaging, albeit slightly stressful, VCE curriculum. We’re so lucky to have had the breadth of subject offerings and depth of resources at our disposal, and to have found niche passions alongside friends and peers. The Geelong College’s education has well prepared us for what’s ahead, and we must be more than excited to look to 2022 and the years beyond that. Whichever areas of study and vocations we find ourselves in, it is most delightful that we can attribute our holistic education and worldly experiences to this very school, The Geelong College. We’ve been incredibly fortunate to take on positions of leadership this year and have noticed that in spite of periods away from campus, our longanticipated return late into Term 3 welcomed very much the same jovial, energetic cohort. Together we have navigated not just an already strenuous year of VCE, but equally the insistent setbacks posed by COVID-19. If this year is any indication of our futures, we are confident that the Class of 2021 will continue to demonstrate an unrelenting resilience to challenges and tenacious curiosity towards their academic and career pursuits. What we hope is that in the process of moving beyond high school, we Year 12s will always remember the experiences that defined us and our cohort, and the significance of our efforts especially in these last two years.