Grade 12 student Naren Balaji Ganesh Pillai has had a big couple of years. He completed five undergraduate psychology units at UTAS through the Underwood Centre’s High Achiever Program (HAP) while studying at Elizabeth College, and spent his school holidays at national and international science forums with the support of organisations such as Rotary and the Royal Society of Tasmania.
All of these adventures, he says, started with HAP.
“I'm very grateful for them for giving me the opportunity in Year 11 because it was a real inflection point where everything kind of helped each other.”
Naren says that the program extended his horizons, pushing him to “keep on going up, and stepping up the ladder,” and he was selected to attend the International Science School in Sydney in 2023 and the National Science Youth Forum in Canberra in 2024.
Ultimately, these opportunities culminated in him applying for the prestigious Michigan Math & Science Scholars Summer Program, which he attended in July this year. Naren's passion for neuroscience led to an interest in “how information is encoded in networks,” and following guidance by the University of Michigan, he chose to undertake an intensive course through the program in the “new and promising field” of Informational Thermodynamics.
Naren is one of 44 students from 17 schools across Tasmania that participated in HAP at the University of Tasmania in 2024. He took full advantage of the program, finishing second- and third-year psychology subjects that will count towards both his TCE and ATAR, and be credited towards his future studies.
Naren says that throughout his travels, he found “that almost all universities have very similar curriculum and have very similar resources.” As a result of this, he believes that connection to community should be the main consideration when picking somewhere to study. Naren has applied for Medicine at UTAS and has an early offer into Biomed through the Schools Recommendation Program.
“The only benefit that you should be aiming for is the community. And Tasmania, obviously, has the best community for me with all the contacts that I've managed to make inside the University of Tasmania. I feel like it's a lot more conducive to a better learning environment than overseas.”
Naren reflects that HAP enhanced his curiosity and understanding better than self-study with a textbook, and that he never imagined his life turning out this way.
“Only looking back, I can understand what an amazing thing that was to be accepted in. When I first got it, I was really excited to go into university and actually take the courses and have the professors and lecturers there to talk to… You can have these long lengthy essay discussions about different points, and I must have sent more than 100 emails back and forth between professors and teachers at UTAS and also College.”
The 18-year-old lives with his mum and brother in West Moonah, having moved to Tasmania from Melbourne when he was in Year 8. Naren also has a special interest in dementia, and particularly enjoyed PSY224 and PSY331. He recently completed all four of the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre courses.
“I hope to go to the Burnie campus as my grandmother lived in a rural place in India and witnessed first-hand the lacking health services in rural areas. I am aiming to get deaf and disability trained to make sure my efforts can be spread to underrepresented communities as well. I hope to help support Tasmanians up there, both as a way to repay the favours Tasmania have given me and because I hopefully will be able to increase the accessibility of the services there.”
Dr Jess Woodroffe, Coordinator of Partner Programs at the Peter Underwood Centre, said that Naren has had an amazing journey.
“Naren first came to us with the support of his school in Year 10, wanting to know about the High Achiever Program. It has been such a pleasure to be able to not only support Naren to participate in the program for two years, but to see him thrive and explore his passion for psychology and neuroscience. HAP was developed 23 years ago for this very purpose, and it’s so wonderful to see these success stories.”
Applications for next year’s High Achiever Program are now open and close at midnight on Thursday 19 December 2024. Find out more here.