Completing the HSC is the kind of experience most would only want to go through once.
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But not Liam Comerford. After matriculating with a 95.60 ATAR at the end of last year, the 18-year-old has chosen to relive the experience during his gap year.
Signing on to become the first accredited trainee tutor at Achieve Education, Mr Comerford will spend the next 12 months coaching the next generation through their higher school certificate.
"The HSC was enjoyable, that sounds strange to say, but I did enjoy it. Enough to want to revisit it," the former Mater Dei student said.
"There were parts I didn't like, but mostly I enjoyed the content and the course work. It felt rewarding and satisfying."
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While the Wagga-based tutoring service has regularly hosted recently graduated HSC students as mentors in its classrooms, this is the first time one of those students has made the leap to tutoring.
"Most of the time when you have those top achieving students, you lose them to university as soon as they graduate high school," said Achieve founder Dr Tamara Jones-Hood.
"We were very lucky to get Liam."
Mr Comerford's apprenticeship with Achieve was made possible through a federal government program facilitated by employment and training service VERTO.
Although he will also be joining the city's school campuses as a teacher's aid, and teaching students of all ages, Mr Comerford wants to primarily focus on a few senior-level subjects.
A jack-of-all-trades, his main areas include Advanced English, biology, legal studies, and all levels of mathematics - including extension 2.
"I do love maths. You can spend 30 minutes working at one question and then the answer will just come out so perfectly," he said.
"There's really no beating that feeling."
Now on the other side of the classroom, Mr Comerford said his decision to hold off his future vocation for a year came at the eleventh hour.
Following the release of his results in December, he accepted an offer to complete a bachelor of actuarial studies at the Australian National University.
But, before heading off to Canberra, he wanted one more chance to get back to the HSC.
"I wanted to do something meaningful and get some experience in the community before going to uni," he said.
"It's a bit like I'm doing high school again, just from a different angle. It is easier on this side. I feel more confident now that I've gone through it."