Lawley Alumni

As part of our "where are they now" series, here is an entry from Ivana, a former MLSHS student who visited our GATE students to discuss the value and opportunities language learning brings. We thank Ivana and invite our former students to make contact with MLSHS, a school they can be proud of long after they've finished their high school years.

Hi I'm Ivana and I graduated from Mount Lawley Senior High School in 2005.  Currently I am a student at Tafe and at Curtin university. At Tafe I am doing a diploma course in Chinese Mandarin. I'm only 21 but I have been studying Chinese for the last eight years.

Ever since I was small I knew I liked learning many different languages. My parents told me if I am serious about this then I should learn Japanese or Chinese as those languages are rather important in today's world. I didn't think much of that until I finished primary school. My parents wanted me to go to a high school with a good reputation so I applied to go to Mount Lawley Senior High School. The condition was I had to learn 2 languages with one being Chinese.

Chinese is a pretty hard language but I like challenges. Another reason why I study Chinese is that I think it would give me good career opportunities around the world. So after studying it for 5 years in high school I thought I have already come so far if I quit now I will surely regret it.

In order to keep myself challenged and improving I entered several Chinese speaking competitions and also enrolled into Tafe.

In September of 2008 I was given a scholarship to study in China for a year. That was the experience of a lifetime. Not only did I learn about the country, the culture and the language; I learnt so much more. I was around students from all over the world and I learnt many things from these people; about their customs, geography, history etc. I even picked up on some Russian and Spanish whilst over there.

My parents have always said to me that if something was easy everybody would do it. It takes determination to master anything and if you put your mind to it you truly can achieve what you want. I never thought that learning languages could open so many doors and I truly am happy with the choices I have made.

Thank you