With their sights firmly fixed on in-demand careers in engineering and health care, Year 12 students BJ Luckhurst Smith and Ly Vu are among 12,500 SACE students who began their final SACE exams this week.

The Valley View Secondary School students, who started their exam journey with Mathematical Methods on Monday, are representative of the bright young minds determined to play their part in building economic and social prosperity in South Australia.

BJ, who aspires to a career in civil engineering, says he enjoys math.

"Analysing loads and forces on structures really interests me, whether its bridges, pipes or buildings," he says.

"Also, there seems to be plenty of jobs in the area.

"I’ve been studying hard, but I’m still feeling quite nervous."

BJ’s bio-engineering Research Project on heart transplants has already earnt him an A+.

His investigations into the disadvantages of live heart transplants compared to the use of artificial hearts was informed by some of Australia’s leading biomedical engineers and academics and explored survival rates and health outcomes.

Meanwhile, Ly Vu’s determination to pursue a medical career in South Australia has required an extraordinary effort as she has wrangled with a new language as well as the curriculum.

Ly Vu joined Valley View Secondary – her first English-speaking school – in late 2022 after arriving from Vietnam as an international student.

"We didn’t speak a lot of English at home, so it was quite difficult at first to understand what the teachers were saying," she says.

"I would listen to podcasts and one of my cousins was quite talkative, so I would talk to her as much as I could."

For the past two years she has worked hard to become an A-grade student, learning in her non-dominant language, with a goal of studying and working in the medical field.

"My English gradually improved, but I felt I had to work twice as hard," she says.

Ly Vu has a particularly gruelling exam schedule. Following the Mathematics Methods exam on Monday, Ly was sitting her English as an Additional Language exam on Tuesday, Chemistry on Wednesday and Biology on Friday.

"It’s fair to say, I’m quite stressed right now, but I hope I do well in my exams as I want to stay in Adelaide and study medicine or nursing," she says.

"My grandma got cancer when I was little, and I decided then that I wanted to become a doctor to help people.

"Living in Adelaide allows me to experience and learn things that would not have been possible in Vietnam. Many people have helped me, especially my teachers, and I have made great friends."

EXAMS AT A GLANCE

• More than 12,500 South Australian SACE are currently undertaking their exams.
• 31 exams will be held over a 10-day period which started on Monday.
• Geography and Music Studies subjects will be the last examined on November 15.
• The Stage 2 SACE subjects (examined) with the largest number of students in 2024 are General Mathematics (4226 students), Biology (3144 students), Mathematical Methods (2907 students) and Psychology (2588 students).
• Students will receive their SACE results on December 16.

The article was prepared by the Department for Education and has been reproduced here with permission.