Matthew Flinders Girls Secondary College (MFG) student Sonnet Pandit’s lifelong love of literature has inspired her to two major achievements this year.
The year 11 student completed Unit 3/4 subject Extended Investigation and received a subject score of 48, the state’s second highest for the subject, and was also the MFG recipient of the 2023 Deakin Young Influencer of the Year Award scholarship.
She said she was “overwhelmed” when she found out about her score for the subject.
“When I got up and saw a 48 I started running around the house and screaming ‘I have a 48 for extended!’” Sonnet said.
Extended Investigation requires significant research into an original topic of the student’s choice, culminating in a 4000-word report and an oral presentation.
Sonnet chose to explore the interconnections between authors Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf from a feminist perspective.
“Both Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf have this profound influence on me as a person and as somebody who would consider herself a feminist,” she said.
“When I was very sick, I was reading Virginia Woolf for comfort, and I was reading her essay, A Room of One’s Own, in which she alluded to Austen quite a bit. And then that kind of interested me; I wanted to see if Jane Austen had an influence on Virginia Woolf.
“I found out that there was quite a limited amount of research done on the interconnection between Austen and Woolf as authors within a broader feminist tradition. So I thought that it would be quite worthwhile to kind of, perhaps, bridge that gap.”
Following high school, Sonnet plans to undertake a double degree in literature and law, after which she hopes to study at either Oxford or Cambridge.
She thanked her parents, as well as MDG assistant principal and Extended Investigation teacher Damien Toussaint, for their encouragement and support throughout the year.
