When Octavian Catrinei arrived with his family to Australia two and a half years ago, the pressure of the unknown, the new environment, new friends, and a new homeland – his third in a row – didn’t seem like an easy task to get used to.
But as his parents have always taught him, he didn’t let the stress affect his focus and stop him from reaching his full potential. Last year, Octavian graduated from Melbourne’s St. John’s Greek Orthodox College, with the highest ATAR score ever received by a St. John’s student – an outstanding 99.55.
After just two years in Australia, he excelled in all VCE subjects and achieved the highest score in English with 50.0 and Legal Studies with 45. While still in Year 11, he found himself amongst top VCE students enlisted for the highest score in the Greek language on the VCE level – 45.0.
Born in Romania, when Octavian was eight years old his family migrated to Greece, to the island of Kythira and later Karditsa, where they spent eight memorable years, as Octavian remembers.
In 2011, the Catrinei family was among many Greek residents who decided to try their luck in Australia.
“It wasn’t easy. Especially the first days, it was a big change – a different language, you need to adapt to this new environment. But it was the teachers and the students, the principal of St. John’s College that helped me a lot.
“I really loved St. John’s, it was an amazing place for me,” Octavian tells Neos Kosmos in his fluent and flawless English.
Asked about the differences he encountered in the education systems of Greece and Australia, the 2013 College Dux Octavian responds honestly and with no hesitation.
“It’s different. In Greece in Year 11 and 12 you have to choose between two directions – humanities and natural sciences. Here I had the opportunity to choose both chemistry and maths, as well as classical Greek.
“Language carries culture. Every language is a way of thinking; with each language you gain a new way of thinking. You expand your horizons so much. It opens new windows and new perspectives.
“Another difference I noted was the time – in Australia, there is a lot of pressure on students to write quickly, to think, to solve the problems quickly. Also, the competitive nature of the school here was something totally new to me,” he reveals.
An extraordinary achievement for a student who has only been in Australia for two years now, Octavian’s contribution to school life has been exemplary, as he received St. John’s College Orthodoxy Award, for his commitment in the study of orthodoxy; the Caltex Award – available to a select few senior students around Australia – for excelling in key areas: academic, attitude, personal conduct, leadership and service and the Australian Defence Force Award, in recognition of teamwork and leadership skills. All that well rounded out with a 99.55 ATAR result.
“I didn’t think about specific results but I hoped for the high one. I just worked as hard as I could. My parents were not surprised; they told me they expected the best.
“They always taught me that I should not let stress and pressure make me lose my focus. They supported me and that is very important,” Octavian tells, whose ATAR results have secured him his first-choice degree in tertiary education – Arts at the University of Melbourne.
If everything goes according to plan, from Arts he will proceed to do a Law degree. In the meantime, he says, he will enjoy Arts and Classical Greek, a long-time passion of his.
For a graduate of St. John’s College, fluent in Romanian, Greek, English and German and passionate about Ancient Greek, Nelson Mandela’s thought summarises it all:
“Language carries culture. Every language is a way of thinking; with each language you gain a new way of thinking. You expand your horizons so much. It opens new windows and new perspectives.
There is a saying: ‘When you speak to a man in a language that he understands, you speak to his brain. But when you speak to a man in his native language, you speak to his heart.’ And that’s a great difference.”