Student Profile: Guillemette, Year 12

At LCIS, we enable students who participate in elite sports to tailor their curriculum to ensure academic success while achieving their elite sporting goals. 

Guillemette, who is now in Year 12, was recently awarded our exclusive "Exhibitioner Award" for her commitment to rowing and her perseverance and determination in the face of a relentless training schedule outside of school. We are therefore incredibly proud, and even more impressed, with her skills, outlook and drive in her academic endeavours. Guillemette scored an outstanding 6 x 9 and 4 x 8 at the recent IGCSEs.

Guillemette says of herself: “I am a very scientific person and my favourite subjects at school are biology and chemistry, subjects I also take at Higher Level in the IB Diploma. In the future, I would like to study medicine, either in the surgical department or in the field of nutrition in sports, which interests me a lot because I am an athlete."

“LCIS has been very supportive in allowing me to participate in certain championships, even if it meant skipping a few days of school, and my teachers went out of their way to help me achieve my academic goals. I started my IGCSEs with low grades and the constant communication with my teachers helped me to aim high and push myself beyond what I thought possible. I am so proud to say that I achieved top grades in all subjects.  The teachers are definitely one of the reasons why I really like La Côte International School."

Given her busy schedule and ambitious goals in academia and elite sport, we wanted to know from her what experience and skills she has gained in balancing these two areas. 

"When it comes to balancing school and sport, organisation is key. I feel like this has become my personal strength! Sometimes I find it hard to go to every training session and do all my homework at the same time, especially during exam season. But if I keep reminding myself of this mantra, I don't put things off and get things done. Another problem is also stress. The pressure of keeping up with my school workload and the stress of my rowing and competition successes can be overwhelming at times, but I'm working on not letting it consume me and just remembering what I've been able to do so far and the successes I've had."

Guillemette explains to us why she applied for the exclusive LCIS Exhibitioner Award, which aims to provide our students with the opportunity to develop, grow and thrive in their specific areas of interest.

“In the beginning I really just applied to the award without any actual intentions of winning but simply thinking that I was a good representation of balancing both school and sports."

“I currently train 6 times a week for about 2 hours each in preparation of the Swiss national championships. Physically, this requires a lot of intrinsic motivation as it is very demanding on the body. Rowing utilizes every single muscle of the human body. Alongside this, it requires very techniqual skills and therefore lot of effort and work are put into it if you want to see results, dedication is definetly key to success. Socially, it does take up a lot of my time and therefore, I often have to make sacrifices towards hanging out with people but that is also decisions I have made by committing to the sport."

"As school is also a very important matter and rowing is a demanding sport, this requires a lot of organization when it comes to coping with the demands of being a student. I don’t always have as much time as I would want to do my homework or revise but I’ve definitely learned to work with it, actually its a kind of balance which allows me to clear my head from all the school work. It is definetly a quality that I will be able to utilize in my everyday life in the future; I am very pleased to have been selected for this award because I think it recognises and celebrates my determination, perseverance and long-term vision."