Lachlan (Lachie) Dignan

1. Where has your journey in faith and knowledge taken you in the 10 years since you graduated from OLSCC?

I have completed my University Degree to become a Secondary Teacher and now work at Kelvin Grove State College as the College Sports Coordinator and coordinate the Volleyball Excellence Program.

2. What highlights stand out to you?

Through coordinating the Volleyball Excellence Program, our school was awarded the Overall Champion School at the National Schools Cup in 2021. Through coaching, I have coached the Met North 19yrs Boys Volleyball team over the past 2 years winning a Gold and Silver Medal, and personally in sport, I have continued to play AFL for the Morningside Football Club, now playing 100 QAFL State League Games.

3. If you knew then, what you know now, what advice would you have offered your Year 12 self?

Regardless of your current level of achievement, it will never be too late, or too hard, to put in the work in, and get into the career of your choice. Follow your passions, not what is easy!

4. What advice would you offer the current Year 12 class?

Absorb every moment you have for the rest of this year. You will look back in years to come and think of every funny, sad, & frustrating moment that happened. And if you don’t, it won’t take long before a quick conversation with old friends will bring these memories back! Put the work into your studies, but don’t forget to life your life, do things you enjoy doing – balance is key.

Liam Farquharson

1. Where has your journey in faith and knowledge taken you in the 10 years since you graduated from OLSCC?

I studied to get a Bachelor of Creative Technology at JMC Academy for 3 years. From there I started to freelance and mostly work as a sound technician for short films. Following that, I became an Audio Visual Technician for courtroom recording & conference technology supporting the Queensland Courts, The Family Court of Australia, Federal Circuit & Federal Court of Australia. After 6 years of that, I now hold an international role at a recording technology company called For The Record that creates and supports products for over 70 Countries. My role is to design, implement and support systems for the purpose of recording and transcription.

2. What highlights stand out to you?

For work, my team of 6 had to design and implement a way that courtrooms could continue to sit through the lockdowns of Covid. We had to come up with a way that Judges could hear matters at home, or courtrooms could host remote participants and still be routed through to other conferencing computers and recording technology so it could be sent to transcribers all around the country in near-real time. Being in a team responsible for the legal system to continue without delays during lockdowns was a proud moment of my career. Before all that, I got to travel the country quite frequently. I've been to most courthouses in Queensland and all but one of the Federal courts in the country. Travelling was rewarding though the work away could be extremely demanding. Outside of that, I'm very proud to have gotten married a few years ago, just before Covid broke out thankfully. I very recently became a father myself which is a phenomenal experience itself. I annually travel the country with good friends, still work behind the scenes producing music and working on live events. I also adopted two dogs, one from being a puppy and another that was a rehome.

3. What have been the challenges?

Uni was difficult as I was working nights at a cinema, so balancing a work, study and personal life was just full of stress. I ended up deferring some subjects to take on again later just so I could keep up with everything. Eventually I got through it and finished Uni but it definitely was a struggle. With work, if a recording is damaged, or there was a mistake that affected the quality of the recording, it was thousands of dollars and potentially a mistrial. Accuracy of transcripts rely on the quality of recordings. A system going silent, or a mic distorting severely meant no recording, no transcript and thus no record of the hearing. I would manually listen to all 500 courtrooms every single morning to sound check in case of errors and it had to be done before courts started at 8:30am. It was high pressure, but an important job for our legal system.

4. If you knew then, what you know now, what advice would you have offered your Year 12 self?

Focus more on what you can do right now, rather than what you can do later.

5. What advice would you offer the current Year 12 class?

What your life will be next year and what it will be in five years are going to be very different from each other, so don't focus so much on the future and enjoy the moment you're living in.