Finn Molyneux who works part-time at the Pink Papaya in Springwood and is sitting his Higher School Certificate exams this week at Winmalee High School.
Finn Molyneux is not your typical Blue Mountains HSC student.
For the last two years he has combined his interest in hospitality with studying for his Higher School Certificate at Winmalee High School and by his own admission “isn’t too worried” about his exams which started this week.
The 17-year-old Winmalee High School student is one of 567 Blue Mountains HSC students sitting exams out of a total of 73,397 students state-wide. Finn, who works more than 20 hours part-time a week at a Springwood cafe, said he was hoping to study design at the University of Western Sydney and eventually wanted to open his own cafe/bar.
“I like the idea of design because it’s really broad and you can dabble in a lot of stuff but it is relevant for a lot of things,” he said of the university course.
“I am not sure where my path will definitely be going but I can use design principles to build a cafe space, for example, and I am also thinking about an arts studio kind of cafe. Hopefully it will all work out.”
Exams will be held at more than 760 exam centres in Australia and around the world.
Finn’s favourite subject — legal studies — is also one of the top 15 choices of HSC students this year, alongside English, mathematics, biology, business studies, studies of religion, PDHPE (Personal Development and PE), ancient history, chemistry, modern history, visual arts, physics, hospitality and finally community and family studies.
“Shout out to Mr Brady my legal studies teacher — he’s pretty good. I like that it’s (the subject) relevant and useful and it deals with contemporary issues and I’ve also enjoyed music and the creative aspects of that.”
The HSC written exams started on Monday and finish on November 8. There are 117 different exam papers — the first exams are English standard and advanced, and the last are design and technology, Latin extension and visual arts. To prepare themselves for life in the workforce and their employment prospects, there are 30, 856 students enrolled in at least one HSC Vocational Educational and Training or VET course.
“I hope my exams marks will reflect my efforts in the past year, my teachers will find that funny,” said Finn. “I’ve done lots of study,” he added laughing.
Results from the HSC will be announced online on December 19.