Every student leaves Mackay North State High School with a different story to tell.
Over the coming months, we're sharing some of those stories — celebrating former students whose careers, passions and ambitions have taken them in many different directions since leaving our classrooms.
Next up is 2024 graduate Kristian Hutchins, who finished Year 12 with an ATAR of 99 and is now studying Engineering and Commerce at the University of Western Australia.
For Kristian, some of his strongest memories of North High have less to do with academic results and more to do with the people he shared those years with.
"Year 11 camp provided an amazing opportunity to really solidify friendships with my colleagues as we enjoyed fun activities together like the treasure hunt and formal was such a satisfying event after finishing off a tough school year," Kristian said.
"To me getting through the school year with good friends and going through all the ups and downs with them was by far the most enjoyable during my school years at North high."
After graduating, Kristian didn't head straight to university.
He took a gap year in 2025, working full-time, saving money, travelling overseas and giving himself time to seriously consider what he wanted to pursue.
The following year he moved to Perth to begin a combined Engineering and Commerce degree at the University of Western Australia, initially pursuing Robotics and Automation Engineering.
Perth had another draw for Kristian — he was originally from the WA capital and his family had long wanted to return.
But university has already brought a change in direction.
A recent opportunity to work as a trades assistant with Renewable Metals — which is developing a process to extract key minerals from end-of-life lithium-ion batteries — has prompted Kristian to switch to Chemical Engineering, with the experience also sparking an interest in extractive metallurgy and process engineering.
"Seeing the plant and all the separation processes used to process the batteries into its component minerals was truly inspiring and is what motivated me to make the decision to move down this path," Kristian said.
He said he had combined Engineering and Commerce because, alongside his interest in finance and investments, he saw an understanding of financial management as an important part of engineering.
But while Kristian was finetuning his academic direction, he was also adjusting to the realities of university life away from home.
"University has definitely been a massive change, and getting thrown straight into a new environment in a new state was a challenge to adapt to but I did the best I could and found incredible supportive friends and formed amazing connections which are experiences I am very grateful for," he said.
University was also where one of the lessons Kristian learnt at North High became particularly valuable.
"At North High I had some amazing mentors in the form of my subject teachers who supported me every step of the way in my ATAR journey," he said.
"One of the lessons I learned was to not be so hard on myself and to recognise my limits."
Kristian said that lesson helped as the workload intensified and his university subjects became more conceptually difficult.
"The truth is that I was right," he said.
"While I made some mistakes academically, I still performed extremely well but I didn't let the small mistakes effect my mentality and kept a solid work effort throughout all of it which helped me achieve the results I did this semester."
For current North High students aiming high academically, Kristian's advice isn't about chasing perfection.
"You are going to make mistakes and something bad is going to happen. You can't expect to be perfect. No one is," he said.
"But that doesn't matter. Just because you make mistakes doesn't mean you're any less of a person.
"Just keep the vision of where you want to be in the future clear and keep pushing towards that goal and you will achieve it."
For students considering engineering, he also encouraged them to work on something that can't necessarily be measured by an ATAR: communication.
"For engineering in particular, communication and understanding how to work in a team is extremely important," Kristian said.
"So, some advice I can give is to get yourself out of your comfort zone and start communicating with people. Talk to people. Who knows what opportunities could come out of the new connections you make.
"And even if something crazy doesn't happen, at least you'll be improving your communication skills."
Kristian may only be a couple of years beyond the North High gates, but his story is already a reminder that even a 99 ATAR doesn't mean having every step mapped out — or expecting perfection from yourself along the way.
We're proud to see Kristian making the most of new opportunities and allowing his path to evolve as he discovers where his interests can take him.