Warrnambool Brauer College captain to sit VCE English exam

Rain's parents moved to the south-west from China when he was 11 with the then-grade six pupil learning to speak the language from his classmates.

On Tuesday, October 24, 2023, the Brauer College student will sit the VCE English exam with thousands of other year 12 students across the state.

He'll then sit the media exam on November 7, followed by physics two days later.

Rain, 18, was Brauer's year 11 dux in 2022 and selected to attend a prestigious national mathematics summer school in Canberra in January 2023.

Rain, a college captain, said while going into the English exam was stressful he felt "quite prepared".

It's a far cry from his arrival in Australia when he "spoke no English at all" and started at Warrnambool West Primary School.

"It was a very challenging time at the start," Rain said. "For the first three years, including primary school and year seven and eight, I wasn't able to communicate with people really well or make friends effectively."

Rain said learning English was trial and error. He persisted, following his school teachers around to practise and sought feedback from his friends.

"It was trying to step out of the comfort zone and try to speak," he said. "To continue to make mistakes while speaking English and have the people correct you. Maybe try to mimic or copy some of the things my friend says."

He said adapting to Australian culture, such as how things worked and how people did things, was more challenging than learning the language.

"For example everyone (here) had extra-curricular stuff, like cricket and footy and other stuff," he said. "In primary school I used to go home and I didn't know what to do. In China we left school with a lot of homework and here there's a lot of free time."

His mum and dad moved to Warrnambool from Fuzhou in the Fujian province to work at Midfield Meat in search of a better life.

"They saw that coming here would provide me with better education and, in general, a better life quality in Australia," he said.

Rain last visited China four years ago and said moving to Australia had shown him what was possible.

"I still miss my home town very much and I think China is a great place," he said. "I think Australia has expanded my vision a lot."

Rain has applied to study engineering at Monash University next year and he needs an ATAR of 98 to get in.

"I chose engineering because it's a combination of maths and physics which I really enjoy," he said.

Rain completed year 12 mathematical methods and specialist mathematics in 2022, gaining study scores of 48 and 38 respectively.

He said completing the earlier subjects had taken the pressure off him this year and he needed a study score of 30 in English and a 40 in physics, which were "both very achievable".

"For me personally, I just want to do well in terms of everything I do," Rain said. "It's not for the scores or anything it's simply the fact I like the subject and I want to learn more.

"I pursue the knowledge more than the marks. That relieves a lot of pressure actually."

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