Todd Harris plans to spend summer working on a research programme before starting university. Photo/George Novak.
Todd Harris plans to spend summer working on a research programme before starting university. Photo/George Novak.
Tauranga's Todd Harris is one student who won't be putting the books away any time soon as the NCEA exams draw to a close.
Today is the final day of the secondary school NCEA exams and hundreds of Tauranga students will be breathing sighs of relief as they look forwardto their summer holidays.
But Todd, 17, is looking forward to a lifetime of study.
The Tauranga Boys' College dux has finished his five Scholarship exams and one NCEA L3 exams, and is now working for a research programme at the University of Waikato over the break until he can start the academic year at Australian National University in Canberra.
He is a passionate physicist and dreams of entering the field of quantum relativity.
He completed his NCEA L3 papers while still in Year 12 (Form 6) and has spent this year completing five university papers "for fun".
In his Chemistry 101 paper through the University of Waikato, Todd scored top of his course with a 99.1 per cent final grade.
"I did the papers because I'm passionate, they were just for fun really. I could have left school and gone to university after Year 12 and been pretty well off but I didn't want to go to uni that young."
He said he thought he had done well in all of his NCEA and Scholarship exams, except Scholarship calculus which he said was "a disaster".
"I wasn't planning on sitting it but my Level 3 calculus exam went so well I thought I'd do it. Everything else went pretty well, I think I improved on my Scholarship results from last year. If I get an 'outstanding' result on any of the papers it will be physics because I managed to answer almost all of the questions.
"Most of the challenge with Scholarship papers is just trying to complete the exam."
He originally planned to attend a New Zealand university but said he found physics was not a popular subject here so the quality of teaching and equipment was less than offered overseas.
He will leave for Canberra in February and is considering returning to New Zealand for post graduate and doctorate studies.
"Ultimately I would like to be employed by a university or doing post graduate research. Study is kind of my thing and now I'm going to be doing it for a long time after high school and probably for the rest of my life. Finishing high school doesn't feel like anything's changed, I'm still studying."
