Good on Colleen Gao for persevering through very difficult times and circumstances and still achieve the status of being the “Dux” or her school. Now 18, Gao in 2020 went to Shanghai to holiday and lived with her Grandmother in her apartment. Then, BOOM! All borders globally closed to China when the pandemic hit.
Enrolled as an international student with determination, she studied hard via virtual means waking up at 5:30am each day to attend class in real time. In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Gao spoke about how distressing the entire situation was.
‘The science teachers zoomed me on an iPad so that I could see the class. My other teachers provided the work on Google classroom and I asked my classmates about the assigned work,
‘From all the help, support and the online lessons offered by my school, I wanted to keep my marks goods to show them that it works.’
‘Being away from people was the most challenging for me. I’m quite an introvert so I didn’t reach out to them. We’d only talk if we had some work to do,’
She did this for 2 years and even took 2 maths HSC tests as a year 11 student. Missing her friends was the downside of it all and she was able to complete her HSC exams in an Australian Government office in China.
She hopes to study spots medicine at university next year.
Congratulations!
Images via Daily Mail Australia