Identical twins Sophie and Tahlia Zanardi have never spent very long apart.
Next year, they are heading off to university in different states.
The sisters, who belong to the Gamilaroi nation, spent their high school days travelling an hour from their home in Dungog to All Saints College in Maitland.
Filled with a mix of nerves and excitement, they can’t wait for the next chapter beyond the HSC as they become the first in their family to go to university.
“We went to primary school together, we did high school together, and we were always the twins,” Sophie said.
They’d always been opposites, Tahlia more creative while Sophie was organised and structured.
“We balance each other out,” Tahlia said.
Tahlia is going to the Australian National University in Canberra to study a Bachelor of Science and is doing a bridging course to hopefully switch to a Bachelor of Genetics.
Sophie has her heart set on primary school teaching, and she will be going to Macquarie University in Sydney.
Year 12 students faced an anxious morning opening their long-awaited end of school results.
“I think it will be good for a change, to have our own space but still communicate over the phone,” Sophie said.
Growing up in a small town like Dungog came with its challenges, the girls said.
Up until they got their driver’s license, they would have to get two buses to school.
“It was exhausting,” Sophie said.
“The bus would sometimes leave us and never show up, or we had to wake up at 5 to get the bus by 7,” she said.
When she first started driving in Maitland, she was thrown off by the traffic lights.
“We only got roundabouts when we were in year 10,” Sophie said.
As the first in their family to go to university, they said it was exciting but stressful because their family did not have the experience to be able to guide them through ATARs and applications.
“We don’t take coming to school for granted,” Sophie said.
“I would rather drive here every day than not have the opportunity to be at school,” she said.
“We’re just figuring it out as we go.”
While both twins struggled with travel times and a new high school environment, Tahlia faced some specific challenges.
She has a hearing impairment and is profoundly deaf in one ear.
“I have worked really hard to get where I am because for most of my primary school, they didn’t really pick up my hearing loss,” she said.
“Sophie was always helping me, and they just assumed I was shy.”
To focus hard on her HSC, Tahlia paused her passion for soccer, where she has played internationally with Deaf Football Australia.
“I’ve had the struggles with people saying, ‘you can’t do that because of your disability’,” she said.
“I definitely think that if I didn’t have my disability, I wouldn’t have pushed to where I am now.”
