Christo: I mean, everyone has to do the HSC, you just gotta cop it, I think.

[Energetic piano music with fast beat]

My name is Christo, I'm 20 turning 21 in like, a month. I finished school in 2013 The subjects that I did were Business Studies, Ancient History, Advanced English, Visual Arts, General Maths and PDHPE.

My best subject was Visual Arts. I didn't always get the best marks - I generally did get better marks in that subject I think that's just because it suited me more, like, more free thinking.

I wasn't very good on the day before exams. I'd kind of try cram and then I'd stop and watch an episode of something because I couldn't I couldn't just, like, sit there and watch it or look at a computer or a book for so long.

I got really stressed during exams just because I felt like I knew that I wasn't going to do too well and deep down I didn't actually care too much, and the only thing I was stressed about was what I was going to do after school.

I wasn't really interested in doing anything that required a high ATAR. I wasn't really interested in doing any Arts degrees or anything - I was more into something with which required a portfolio or maybe even something that was more hands-on like carpentry or a trade.

Mum would always would ask me if everything was okay and like, I'd always say, yeah everything's fine. I just, like, deep down, I was just really stressed about where I was going to be going after school.

I knew that the HSC didn't really suit me - I didn't really care too much for it but I was worried about what was going to happen to me after school.

I did have expectations because I was interested in going to Fine Arts. So I did have in my head, like I wanted to get an ATAR above 70 something, so I could get into COFA with a portfolio because I knew I wasn't going to get above 80.

I knew that like there's life after the ATAR. The most important thing I learned was not to worry about what this number was, at the end of the year, because I knew that there's ways of getting into uni without the number. I didn't get the ATAR but it didn't really bother me too much. I ended up going into design school so Billy Blue.

[Electronic high energy music]

End of transcript.