Scotch College

‘To friends and the future’

When afar and asunder, how will we look back on our time at Scotch? Will we be happy with what we achieved? How will we gauge our success?

Even though our immediate concern is for our exam results, our ENTER scores should in no way be the definitive marker of our success at school.

It is true that we are, essentially, sent to Scotch to be educated in the hope of attaining the highest possible ENTER score. But this is a narrow view and, in fact, our education extends beyond the classroom to the music halls, the playing fields, the drama theatres and beyond.

After having received this well-rounded education, I have no doubt that the greatest thing I will take away from my time here is the friendships that I’ve made and bonds that I have established. Therefore, I believe we should gauge our success on the friends we have made, the laughs we have shared and the good times we have had, not our exam results.

For many boys, it’s difficult to find positives about leaving Scotch. Personally, though, I’m looking forward to not having to respond to the question: ‘So, what are you doing this year Daniel?’ I underestimated both how often this question would be put to me and how difficult it was to explain that I was undertaking a ‘13th year of school’.

In fact, in trying to avoid explaining the complicated reasons why the Scotch School Captain serves another year in the VCE system, I found it easier to pretend that I had undertaken a ‘gap year’, or that I was studying arts, or that I was working with a humanitarian organisation, or that I was studying aeronautical engineering – whatever that is ...

My ‘white’ lying enlightened me as to the endless possibilities that lie beyond our schoolboy days. For the class of ’08, an abundance of courses and career opportunities lies on the horizon, and years in the near future will be spent exploring passions and searching for the ideal career path according to each boy’s interest, and not their parents’.

The opportunities are there to be taken. An American philosopher, William James, once said: ‘He who refuses to embrace opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he had failed.’ So ‘Wolfey’s words of wisdom’ to those departing Scotch this year are: never die wondering, take the opportunities that present themselves, otherwise you will lose the prize before you even have a crack at it.

I offer this ‘wisdom’ in exchange for the way you, the class of ’08, have accepted me into your year group. It has been a year of laughs, success and enjoyment for me, and I hope that you will have etched in your minds the same great memories that I have.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the senior teaching staff for supporting me throughout this year, and I especially wish to thank the Vice-Captain, Alex Williamson, for being both an exceptional model and role model, and for making my job much easier. Final thanks go to Max Davis for not asking me to mention him in this article, after having requested a mention in every other speech and/or article I have done this year!

‘Good old Scotch, we’ll ever sing!’ GS